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MAKIKTTA AMBKOSI. 



ITALIAN CHILD-LIFE 


OR 

MARIETTA’S GOOD TIMES 



MARIETTA AMBROSI 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 


/i7f f y 


D LOTHROP COMPANY ^ 


WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROMFIELD 




Copyright, 1892. 

BY 

t 

D. Lothrop Company. 


CONTENTS. 


I. 

HOW I CAME TO BE BORN IN TYROL 7 

II. 

MY EARLY DRAMATICS AND ACCIDENTS 22 

III. 

IN THE COW-STABLE .... 36 

IV. 

MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS ... 52 

V. 

HOW WE HELPED MAKE WINE . . 71 

VI. 

THE SQUARE OF THE GREENS . . 86 

VII. 

HOW WE GATHERED VIOLETS AND ROSES 102 ^ 


CONTENTS 


VIII. 

OUR PUNCH AND JUDY . . . 119 

IX. 

OUR SILK-WORMS . . . . 129 

X. 

THE SILK-WORM-SEED SEASON . . 142 

XI. 

OUR ANNUAL FAIR .... 158 

XII. 

HOW WE WORKED IN LEATHER . . 173 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Portrait 

Italian baby and nurse 
A young contadina . 
Garibaldi . 

Our Punch and Judy 
The military dogs . 


Frontis. 

61 

67 

83 

121 

171 


V 






ITALIAN CHILD-LIFE 


OR, MARIETTA’S GOOD TIMES 


1 . 


rjlHE great desire of traveling that I have, 
grew with me from my birth. Always, 
when I was a child, at any time of day — 
while working, walking or playing with my 
mates — I would bother them making my 
desire to travel known to them, and telling 
them dreams I had. 

Sometimes, in my dreams, I saw myself in a 
cage of monkeys; sometimes I found myself 
traveling in one of those wagons that contain 
a kitchen, dining-room and bedroom; some 
other time I was sitting in front of a tent, 
holding a stick in my hand and shouting at 
the people. 


7 


8 


marietta’s good times. 


(My American Mother.) 

My mother after having put us children to 
bed would tell us all sorts of stories, and of 
course, truly American that she was, she would 
talk continually about her beautiful American 
soil, of her Boston and of her Dorchester Lower 
Mills. She told us that her house had “No. 1 ” 
on it, and how it stood near the bridge ; now 
the Baker’s chocolate manufactory occupies that 
beautiful spot. But she did not know it then ; 
we were in Italy. She thought that she could 
take us children right there, into her old house, 
and show us the little dry-goods store that 
her mother used to keep, and the barber-shop 
of her father; and she told us how she, too, 
used to shave those customers of his — some of 
them are living now. She told us how one time, 
there having arrived a cargo of dates which had 
spoiled, the merchants thought best to dump 
them right at the spot, and she with her boy 
and girl companions coining out from school, 


HOW I CAME TO BE BORN IN TYROL. 9 


and seeing that pile of dates, thought best to 
empty their satchels and fill them with the 
spoiled fruit. Well, we children of Lombardy, 
who had to pay a soldo for each date — we 
naturally envied her her good luck, and we 
wished we could see that wonderful country of 
America. 

{How I came to he horn in Tyrol,) 

In 1835 my mother’s father thought of return- 
ing to his native land, Lombardia. It was as if 
he knew that he had only a short time to live 
(he died three years afterwards). Lucy — that 
is my mother — and Charles — that is her brother 
— of course began writing letters of farewell to 
their friends, and making the usual promises to 
write to them from Lombardia, telling them all 
their adventures in the new world. They were 
twelve and fourteen years old. When the grand 
day arrived, the sight of the large ship that was 
going to bear them off made them forget for a 


10 


marietta’s good times. 


little while their young grievances. Not so 
their mother — my grandmother ; she was going 
to leave her native land and she was old enough 
to doubt very much if she would see it again. 
She was so overcome with her grief that she 
had to be carried on board ship. 

Once there, and the sails set, they were soon 
out of sight of Dorchester, their point of em- 
barkation. As the ship was a mercantile one 
they had to sleep in hammocks; their state- 
room was adorned with barrels of flour tight 
up, against and around it. For provisions they 
carried a large hen-coop full of chickens, and 
some live sheep. They were the only family 
aboard ; besides them were the captain, a few 
sailors and a cabin boy, who when out of duty 
played with Lucy and Charles. 

Every thing went along quite well for a time, 
when one night a heavy sea tipped that ship over 
a little. My mother’s family were downstairs 
in the dark. They heard a crash, and they had 
to hold on to their hammocks pretty steadily 


HOW I CAME TO BE BOEN IN TYEOL. 11 


until morning. When the hatches were opened 
they saw what had happened to themselves — 
some barrels had broken and thrown all the 
flour around the room, and they had all turned 
gray in one night ; it took them several nights 
to get black hair again. I used to hke to hear 
my mother tell of that night when she was a 
little girl on the ocean. 

Now I will tell you a strange thing. As the 
voyage was very long and tedious, the old cap- 
tain took a fancy to fall in love with my grand- 
mother ; but as there was a grandfather he knew 
that he could not marry her, and as he had lots 
of time to think (the wind being low) he had 
an idea (a very simple one) that he would kill 
my grandfather ! So he called him in his cabin, 
and after talking of one thing and another he 
took out a pistol and told my grandfather to 
say his prayers. My grandfather in his fright 
put up his hand near his mouth with some of 
his fingers bent; it so happened that uncon- 
sciously he made a Freemason’s sign. The old 


12 


marietta’s good times. 


captain was a Freemason, and understood that 
sign ; he dropped the pistol and embraced my 
grandfather and asked his pardon, and begged 
him not to give him up to the police when they 
landed. 

My grandfather who had hardly recovered 
from his fright thought that the captain had 
turned crazy, but he did not stop to ask 
any explanation; he told the captain that he 
was his friend still, but he wished he would not 
play that trick again upon him. After that day 
the captain attended to his duty, but my grand- 
father thought best to carry a weapon, and he 
never found out until they landed that it was 
his unconscious sign that saved him. 

One day, finally, they began to see land, 
and the next morning they found themselves 
in Palermo Bay. It happened to be carnival 
time, and imagine the pleasant surprise for 
those American children, Charles and Lucy, to 
see several beautiful draped boats advancing 
towards their ship. The people had taken their 


HOW I CAME TO BE BORN IN TYROL. 13 


masks off their faces, but had on the masquerad- 
ing costumes, and my mother says that to see 
them grouped, as they were in those draped 
boats with the sun (as it shines there) all over 
them, she thought herself carried to heaven. 
Those that came on board brought to them 
oranges, prickly pears and statuettes. My 
grandmother returned the presents in home- 
made candy that the ladies of Dorchester had 
made and stored away in a large tin box for 
her. 

At night they had a supper and dance on 
board the ship. It so happened that it was 
Thanksgiving Day, and also the birthday of 
Charlie, and my grandfather paid the expenses. 
When the day after they were allowed to land 
they had more festivities, as the captain was a 
Neapolitan and was well known in that port. 

From there my ancestors went to Genoa; 
there too they had a grand time. Afterwards 
they traveled by stages until they arrived at 
Mori, the land where my grandfather was born. 


14 


marietta’s good times. 


Of course lie surprised his folks not a little. 
After having been looked upon as a seventh 
wonder by those village people he began to put 
the children to school and settle up his affairs a 
little. My grandmother cut open her corsets, 
and a petticoat, and the belt of Charlie and 
Lucy, and the bright doubloons began to drop 
out. 

When they went to school Charlie was sur- 
prised that he could not sew as he used to do 
in Dorchester school, and he surprised his 
schoolfellows when he took them home to show 
them the two beautiful table-covers that he and 
Lucy had made, in so many octagonal pieces ; 
those covers afterward came back to America 
again after fifty years of absence. 

The cholera of 1838 took my grandfather 
away, and my gi’andmother was left with her 
two children, the only interpreters she had. 
She died in 1861 and she could not speak clear 
Italian even then. She had moved to Peschiera 
where were some relations of my grandfather. 


HOW I CAME TO BE BORN IN TYROL. 15 


When Lucy, my mother, came to an age to 
marry, she married a Veronese. Six children 
were born to them ; one died, the others are 
living now. Of my grandmother I don’t re- 
member much, except that when I returned 
from school she always had some little present 
for me, in the shape of little sugar boats, baskets, 
or a flower, all made of sugar ; it puzzled me 
where she got those things, as I only could see 
one at a time. When I asked her one day 
about them, she told me never to be inquisitive 
in this world, and I would get along well. She 
died, poor thing, in 1861. 

From Peschiera my parents moved to Bres- 
cia ; then they moved to Tirolo, then to Man- 
tua, then they moved to Tirolo again. 

Our house in Brescia was opposite the Duomo 
Nuovo and Duomo Vecchio; this last one is 
sunk way down a long flight of stairs and its 
windows being quite large and about three feet 
from the ground, they serve as little booths for 
the cobblers. 


16 


maeietta’s good times. 


(How I helped my country at the age of six^ 

On the street-floor of our house there was, 
and there is now, the largest coffee-house in 
Brescia, and in a room next to our apartment 
they used to roast their coffee every day. They 
employed an old man by the name of Romeo ; 
he was then about sixty years of age, and I got 
acquainted with him. I used to go into that 
room and help him by turning that roaster 
crank, while he was telling me soldiers’ stories. 
During that year we had a great many soldiers 
in our city, of all nationalities — French, Prus- 
sians, Creates, Austrian Zouave, Turk, etc. 
That Piazza del Duomo was always crowded 
with soldiers, so was the cafe. 

One day they had a parade on the Piazza del 
Duomo, and poor Romeo wanted to look at it ; 
so he asked me to turn the roaster for him 
while he was looking on from the window. I 
did so for a little while, but when I heard a 
strange band striking a foreign air I let go and 


HOW I HELPED MY COUNTEY. 


17 


went to the other window. When I came hack 
I found the room all in smoke. Poor Romeo 
was frightened; the coffee was burning, hut 
with a few pails of water we put the fire out. 

During the war of 1859 we children made 
several soldi First of all, in cutting up news- 
papers into strips of about eight inches long and 
selling them by the hunch to the cafe owners, 
as their customers preferred them to matches. 
Then when the wounded were brought into our 
city they put them everywhere — in churches, 
palaces, porticoes, etc. — and we children helped 
in distributing clothes and victuals ; they took 
the morgue and converted it into a kitchen. I 
went there many times, having a large pail to 
fill and carry, with another hoy or girl, to some 
church or to the other places. Besides, we 
children went from house to house to collect all 
the linen rags we could get, and if a party had 
no rags they gave us money so that we could 
buy them at some junk-shop. 

When we had a quantity of linen, we would 


18 


marietta’s good times. 


go into a yard and begin taking all the threads 
out, and then we took the lint to the doctors ; 
sometimes we would get a few cents for our 
trouble, and sometimes only caresses and kisses ; 
either pleased us. 

One day a young pretty lady, the owner of 
a bakery, called eight of us girls into her yard, 
and she made us sit in those large baskets that 
we used for bread, and then she gave us two 
whole sheets to cut up for lint. We were en- 
gaged in our pleasant work when we heard the 
tocsin. We knew what that meant. The 
enemy was near, or some other thing just as 
horrible must have happened. 

This young bakeress called her four help-men, 
and they shut up their store. They took us 
out of those baskets and forbade us to speak ; 
they put us all in the oven, and locked it. 
None too soon ; we could hear from our con- 
cealment the pounding that those Creates were 
doing on the store-blinds, swearing and shout- 
ing, wanting bread by force. Our people in 


HOW I HELPED MY COUNTRY. 


19 


vain told them they had none — meantime they 
were cocking their guns. The store-blinds 
were not strong enough to resist the outside 
pounding. All at once we heard a crash and 
shrieks. We knew then we were lost. We 
could hear their sabers, their shots, but did not 
dare to move. We only whispered to each 
other that they, being Creates, would eat us sure. 

After having broken everything they could 
find, we heard some drums and a great stam- 
pede. It was our Guardia Rationale that came 
in time. The bakers forgot us, and we had to 
pound that oven door before they remembered 
us ; we were cool, but all in a perspiration. A 
gentleman that happened there gave us some 
cognac. For that day we had had enough. 

That bakeress, Teresina, loved dolls very 
much, and she always had two or three of them 
under her counter to give to us girls if we did 
her some services. One day she showed me a 
pretty doll, and told me she would give it to 
me if I did her message right. . 


20 


MARIETTA S GOOD TIMES. 


She gave me a note, and when the students 
began to pass in front of her store she pointed 
out to me four fellows who walked in a row, 
and told me to put that note in the coat-pocket 
of the second fellow from the left. So I fol- 
lowed them a good way, and with my mind on 
that pretty doll I forgot which of the second 
fellows was the one. Something was telling 
me it was the right one, and something said it 
was the left — besides, as they chatted they 
stopped and changed their places. Of course I 
knew that if I went back to Teresina with the 
note she would not give me the doll, so I put my 
note in the second fellow’s pocket, and ran back 
to get my doll. I went home happy that night. 

Next morning I found Teresina cross and in 
tears. It seemed that I mistook my fellow, and 
another student called at her store for an ex- 
planation, and her betrothed husband came in 
and broke the engagement. 

Although I did not realize the serious part 
of the matter I left Teresina, and when I saw 


HOW I HELPED MY COUNTRY. 


21 


the students I explained to them that it was my 
mistake. They laughed and went to make 
things cheerful again with her. For my part, 
I gave up the messenger job; I never have 
carried another letter since. 


II. 


( My early dramatics and accidents . ) 

REMEMBER from my childhood that my 
only thought, my only hope, was to get on 
the stage. Not that I was coaxed by anybody ; 
my parents, contrary to many, never bothered 
themselves about my future. In fact, up to 
the age of nineteen I led an Arab life ; I was a 
regular tomboy, as you call it in English. 

I must have been seven years old when I 
took a fancy to the stage. I loved the ballet, 
and I loved to put a chair over a table and 
shout. I talked anything that came into my 
head ; and I used to go down to our landlady 
when she was taking her dinner, to dance the 
polka mazurka (her husband whistling it for 
me ), no other dance pleased me so much ; I 


22 


MY EARLY DRAMATICS AND ACCIDENTS. 23 


wore a lavender dress very short, bare arms and 
shoulders ; I was very fat and round then. 

We lived at the top floor, and I had to go to 
the first floor. One day they had some masons 
to put new marble steps ; they had taken two 
steps out, when twelve o’clock struck. They 
( as it is their custom ) left the work as it was, 
without putting up any notice in the corridors. 

Well, I dressed as usual for my dance and 
ran downstairs ; but this time I made my en- 
trance quite differently from my former ones — 
that is, before they knew what happened, they 
found me lying on their floor bleeding, minus 
three front teeth and with a dislocated elbow ; 
they picked me up and carried me upstairs ; for 
a few days I had to stop my dancing. 

On week days I attended school at the Con- 
vent of the Dorothea ; there everything went 
well, until one Sunday afternoon, as we were 
playing under the big arcades that surrounded 
the beautiful garden of the convent, a girl in 
playing, gave me a push, and I fell against a 


24 


marietta’s good times. 


bench that had a nail sticking out in the cor- 
ner ; that nail struck my nose enough to make 
a hole right where the bridge would be if I had 
any ; as it was it flattened my poor nose all the 
more. 

The frightened nuns held me up in front of 
a pail of water. I remember they stuck a big 
piece of court plaster on the hole, then I fainted. 
I woke up after a long while, and I found my- 
self lying on a sofa in my landlady’s parlor ; 
but in opening my eyes I saw something like a 
box that covered my nose. They tried to keep 
my poor nose together, but for a long while I 
looked like a crushed mummy, and my mother 
said that she prayed the Madonna that if I 
could not look any better she would rather see 
me dead, as I was frightful to look at. 

By and by my teeth began to appear and my 
nose got a little smaller. Still even now when 
I am sick I show the black mark of that nail. 
However, it seems that I have turned better 
looking than my mother expected to see me. 


OUR CHRISTMAS EVES. 


25 


Some people say to me now, that if I had a 
straight nose I might be good looking. 

( Our Christmas Eves . ) 

One of our grand times, for us children, was 
the Christmas Eve. In our country the cele- 
bration begins thus : 

The old folks prepare all the good things we 
are going to eat on the Christmas night after 
we have heard the mass, of which the first be- 
gins at midnight. The victuals are all cooked 
without fat, our fish being always cooked in 
olive oil. 

We children, that night, try hard to keep 
our eyes open so as to go with the old people. 
Of course we fall asleep many times, although 
on that evening we always make up big parties 
and pass most of the evening sitting together 
under the chimney. 

Our fireplaces are very large and high, with 
a very high step at each side of the chimney, 


26 


marietta’s good times. 


and there are stone seats for the children and 
dogs. In that place all our evenings are passed 
very happily ; we eat our dinners and suppers 
there. In front of us we have a high rail with 
a gate to shut us in. As our chimneys are 
known to have no good draught, we little ones 
catch all the smoke with the cat or dog. The 
old folks sit all around the chimney, and if the 
night is a cold one, they put roughly con- 
structed screens patched up with all kinds of 
papers behind them. 

Then they put, for Christmas night only, 
large branches of ginepro ( juniper ) on the fire ; 
it smells very good, and it crackles beautifully. 

To keep us children awake, they let us put 
big chestnuts ( whole ) in the hot cinders, and 
when they are roasted we all know it because 
they make a little explosion. The cinders get 
into our mouths and eyes ; that is part of the 
fun. The old folks put large terra cotta bowls 
full of wine to get warm on the stone steps, 
and they soak in it baked pears and apples. 


OUR CHRISTMAS EVES. 


27 


We cook chestnuts in many ways. One is 
what I have already told you. Another way, 
we roast them ; number three, we peel them 
and boil them with laurel and fennel ; or, num» 
her four, we send them to bake whole at the 
bake-shop — ^his last style suits old folks better 
as it is the easiest way to eat them ; you press 
one between your fingers and it all comes out ; 
it keeps all the flavor, which is very sweet. 

Every night you could see an old woman, 
dressed up in petticoats, an old man’s coat and 
a shawl on her head and shoulders, sitting in a 
corner of our city arcade behind her large 
basket of chestnuts, baked. She keeps them 
well covered up with two blankets and shouts : 

Caldi e honi ” ( W arm and good. ) For two 
or three soldi you could buy a pound of them. 

Well, now you know that we had some 
enjoyment. 

At half-past eleven we all start for the 
Vuomo, where the mass is going to be said. 
Our churches, as you know, are of stone and 


28 


MARIETTA S GOOD TIMES. 


marble, but although they are never warmed 
you soon feel comfortable in them. They only 
keep a h'aciere ( brasier ) in the sacristy, to 
warm the hands of the priests. 

On Christmas night the crowd is immense ; 
we children get the worst of it, as most of the 
time we have to content ourselves with being 
buried between overcoats and petticoats ; once 
in a while our folks will raise us up to get a 
peep, and then down we go again in the dark. 
We dare not keep our eyes always r^ed, be- 
cause our folks all take snuff, and as they are 
very careless, they always let some of it drop ; 
if you catch it once you remember it for a long 
while. Finally mass is finished and we run home 
to our chimney corner, preparing ourselves to 
eat the grand dinner. But alas ! half an hour 
is all we can stand ; the trial of the mass, the 
heat of the fire from our place is too much for 
us — one by one we droop as you might see 
plants do in a hot summer day in the fields. 

Next day finds us very stupid, but by and 


SCOURING OF THE CHIMNEY CHAINS. 29 


by, at about two or three o’clock in tbe after- 
noon, we are up, preparing the stocking for the 
Magi. We hang our stocking at the side of the 
chimney, and go to sleep very early. The morn- 
ing following finds us very bright and happy. 

Well, winter goes by about the same; the 
only difference is we go to bed at eight and 
burn plain wood made up in fascine ( fagots ). 

( The scouring of the chimney chains . ) 

As spring comes we have another enjoy- 
ment ; the boys go from one house to another 
to collect chimney chains that we use to hang 
our pots on. No boy would take out his own 
family chain to scour, as he would rather get 
paid for his work. 

When a boy gets as many chains as he can 
pull, he ties them with a rope, and then he 
fastens the rope around his waist and shoulders 
as they do in playing horse. Thus arrayed, he 
starts off, running towards the gate of the city 


30 


maeietta’s good times. 


nearest to him, out in the road, where there is 
a lot of fine sand. He runs as far as he likes, 
then he comes back, then he runs again, until 
his chains look bright, when he goes down to a 
stream and washes them before entering the city. 

When he arrives at the house of one owner, 

he washes it again ( this time in the fountain ) 

and he hangs it up by the house to dry in the 
✓ 

sun. The housekeeper gives him five or ten 
soldi^ according to the length, or how dirty the 
chain was. The boy goes on delivering all 
the rest of the chains in the same manner; 
when he gets through he is ready to go to 
sleep. Next morning he runs off to the square, 
thinking what to buy with his treasure. 

( Thursday Fat . ) 

In the middle of Lent — we call it Giovedi 
grasso (Thursday Fat) — we “burn the old 
woman,” and we do it in this way : 

Almost every house in Brescia has a court- 


THURSDAY FAT. 


31 


yard surrounded with balconies ; we tie a rope 
to each of these balconies, and in the middle 
we hang the “ old woman ” ( sometimes she is 
accompanied by her old man ). 

To make up the “ old woman,” we take an 
old undershirt, drawers and stockings ; we stuff 
these up with rags, paper and straw, and with 
this stuffing we put lots of fire-crackers. We 
put on, for her head, a grotesque mask, a good 
wig made of fine paper or shavings. 

Then we dress her up with some old clothes, 
and paper skirts. Her hands are made up with 
a pair of old gloves, and on her feet she wears 
real boots. She has a parasol in one hand ; in 
the other she holds a nice paper lace handker- 
chief, and a good poke bonnet is on her head. 
Then we place all the rest of the fireworks on 
her parasol and around her petticoats. We 
let her hang there all day for the children to 
come to see her, and meantime we go around 
to the courtyards to see the others. 

We all arrange the time to fire each “ old 


32 


makietta’s good times. 


woman ” off, so that we all can manage to go 
and see every one. That night we are free to 
go into any courtyards. As we meet around 
the fence, a big fellow puts a match to her 
skirts, and up she goes ; first in a little flame, 
then a fire-cracker explodes, now her hand that 
was holding the paper handkerchief goes off 
with a bang; pretty soon one of her legs 
begins to tremble, and as you watch it it flies 
off with a kick ; her parasol was tied very well 
on her other arm, so it holds the longest, and 
from that you see the fireworks start up. 

After that we children start for the other 
places. It is about midnight when we go home. 

After that hour every kind of enjoyment 
must stop, as Lent begins again. 

( How we play Al Yerdo . ) 

We have a game that we children play 
during Lent. We call it playing Al Yerdo 
( the green ), and it is this : 


HOW WE PLAY AL VERDO. 


33 


Lots of girls and boys meet in a yard or 
house, each one holding a piece of cauliflower 
leaf, and we take an oath to play fair. After 
that day whenever we meet, two at a time, or 
several together, we shout, “ Verdo ! ” and we 
must show a piece of cauliflower leaf ; if it 
looks suspiciously dry we require that it should 
be tried on some wall ; if it doesn’t leave any 
green mark the party holding it has to pay the 
forfeit ; that is, at Easter, she or he has to 
bring to the other a Colombina ( a dove ), made 
by our bakers, with a dyed egg in the middle 
of it. I had to pay several of these forfeits 
because I shouted many times “ Verdo ! ” and 
when it came time to produce the cauliflower 
leaf I had left it in my other dress pocket. 

( Our sparrows . ) 

Besides this divertisement, we children buy 
sparrows’ nests. We have a large cage for 
our little birds, and we begin from the time 


84 


marietta’s good times. 


their little feathers grow, to shut our wdndows 
and, opening the cage, to call them out, holding 
a pignolo ( a pine seed ) in our hands. 

At first they are little stupids, but after sev- 
eral mornings’ trial, they like the game so much 
that whenever we go near their cage they toss 
their little heads and with a chirp ask to come 
out. It is rather pretty to see them, four or 
five in a room, flying all around. We always 
have some large branches or shrubs, and they 
enjoy it very much. When time is up, they let 
us take hold of ihem and shut them in. 

We make calls with our cages. When sev- 
eral girls and boys bring their sparrows in 
cages, we put signs on all of them ; on one lot 
a red silk garter, on another white or green, so 
at night we can take each our own. 

( On Palm Sunday . ) 

Palm Sunday is a very gay Sunday with us. 

Early in the morning our cathedral is sur- 


ON PALM SUNDAY. 


35 


rounded with olive branches, some as large 
as a Christmas-tree in America. The small 
branches are sold gilded, with little wax doves 
stuck on them. 

The air is full of the fragrance and the noise 
of them, because we children each take a leaf 
of the branch, and splitting it as a quill pen is 
split, we bend it, and putting it between our 
lips, we get a pleasant sound from it ; and as 
almost everybody does it on that day the 
music is great. 


III. 


{In the cow-stahle.) 

I was about ten years old, my 
family moved into a big house ; there 
were twenty-four neighbors in it, and about 
sixty children besides ourselves. There my 
best life passed ; there I played with other girls 
and boys on a good stage. 

Our plays were our own ; that is, we dressed 
as we desired, and we said what we thought 
best. We did not care for audience ; the act- 
ing was for our own amusement. But one day 
the good lady that lent us her sheets and a 
large table to make the stage came into the 
room to do her knitting. After that day we 
had an audience of several old ladies; one of 
them was deaf, but she enjoyed us very much 


36 


IN THE COW-STABLE. 


37 


— I think now that she came to see how we 
treated her old blanket, our drop-curtain. 

I remember on the first night I moved into 
that house what a pleasure it was to me when 
one of the many children came and said that if 
I wished I could go down into the cows’ stable 
after supper to spend the evening ; of course I 
told that boy to come and get me whenever he 
chose. As he promised, he came at 8 p. m., in 
company with some other children all curious 
to see how a daughter of an American looked ; 
and after going down five long staircases and 
•turning into a courtyard and passing through a 
long mules’ stable, we turned into another 
courtyard aaid finally we found ourselves in 
fi-ont of a large stable-door. One of the boys 
knew how to open the little door that opened 
in the big one. To see our way through that 
labyrinth we had lighted a piece of apron-string, 
having soaked it in one of our oh lamps, as we 
had seen the peasants do where we had spent 
our vacations. 


38 


MARIETTA S GOOD TIMES. 


Imagine my surprise and pleasure when I 
found myself in that cow-stable ! I shall never 
forget the first impression it made on me. I 
thought myself transported into the stable where 
our Saviour was born. The only tiling I missed 
there was the donkey. What I saw was this : 

A large, almost square stable with three cows 
in it, with lots of straw ; in the manger were 
several little babies, some asleep, and some 
playing with some bits of hay ; -scattered here 
and there, their mothers or sisters were sitting 
on common three-legged stools, knitting, spin- 
ning and mending stockings. Further along, 
two shoemakers with their apprentices were 
pegging away and singing ; one boy there had 
a beautiful voice (later on he was picked up 
by a manager and came to America to sing in 
opera). Then came the fellow that was making 
baskets; he had a beautiful tenor voice, and 
while showing to some boys how to begin a 
basket he would sing out a part of some Italian 
opera; once in a while he would get excited. 


IN THE COW-STABLE. 


39 


and when singing Manrico’s part in Trovatore 
as he arrived at the Malreggendp alVaspro 
assalto he would brandish his short knife that 
he used to cut the small twigs of his wdcker, 
and at the end of that song he plunged it in 
one of the finished baskets near him. I heard 
that opera sung all through by those people — 
women, men, boys and girls — from beginning 
to the end. If they did not know every word 
of it, they knew the airs correctly. 

It was not an unusual thing to hear a very 
young voice in it, as some of those babies would 
not be forgotten. The Zingari song was grand, 
as the shoemakers would use their hammers on 
their stone slabs, and in that dim light of a 
dozen or so of oil lamps hung here and there, 
the effect was unique. 

I don’t know what those cows thought ; once 
in a while they would give out their plaintive 
sound, but what it meant I don’t know. 

Then there was a fellow that was making 
toys, such as wagons, carriages, tables and 


40 


marietta’s good times. 


chairs; he was an amateur and he always 
painted them with gorgeous colors. There was 
the man that had riddles by the hundred. We 
children looked on at those things. I liked 
very much the man that was making the soles 
for the wooden shoes (slipshods). In the 
course of the evening I struck a contract with 
him ; he took my measure and I promised to 
bring to him the top parts of the shoes in a few 
days, which I did. My older sister stretched 
for me a nice piece of broadcloth on an em- 
broidery frame, and she drew a design on it 
and I outlined it with scarlet worsted cord; 
after it was finished I glued the back of it with 
tragacanth and put it before the fire to dry stiff ; 
afterwards I lined these uppers with coarse 
linen and took them down to the man. 

I was so proud with my slipshods that I 
walked in them all over the city, and I always 
tried to see my reflected feet in some shop- 
windows. 

In that stable we children would camp out 


THE MAN WITH THE MAGIC LANTERN. 41 


on the backs of those patient cows ; these cows 
let us do it for a while, and when they had 
enough apparently, without giving us warning 
they jumped up very quick and sent us in 
every direction — sometimes in one of those 
haangers, sometimes on the back of some old 
woman. 

( The Man with the Magic Lantern^ 

One winter in the same house some bigger 
boys and girls than we were hired the carriage- 
house, and they built a regular stage ; so I vol- 
unteered my services, and by helping inside 
and selling tickets for them I was free to go in 
at any time. 

One day there arrived a strange-looking 
man; he spoke the Veronese language. We 
girls took a look at his room one day, and we 
saw that he had two nice dogs, and to keep 
them from getting on his bed, he used to put 
his cane, umbrella and gun on it. Besides we 


42 


marietta’s good times. 


saw that he had a magic lantern, and hb was 
dressing some puppets. 

Of course that was too much for me. I 
knocked, I went in, and in five minutes I was 
sewing for him ; I dressed several queens and 
brigands. Meantime he told me that he was a 
wandering man, and he earned his living by 
going with his dogs to hunt truffles ; besides he 
went to institutes, or to country houses where 
he played a comedy with his puppets, and he 
showed the views of the Holy Land with his 
magic lantern to the children. I engaged my- 
self to follow him on his first journey. 

{How I played the Queen.) 

Two weeks afterwards you might have seen 
on a pleasant Sunday morning, leaving the big 
house, a little caravan ; it consisted of a nice 
beautiful donkey attached to a little uncovered 
wagon, then two beautiful big dogs, then a tall 
gray old man, in a dress-suit, light gray tall hat, 


HOW I PLAYED THE QUEEN. 


43 


with a switch in his hand (for the little donkey, 
as the dogs understood him by his look) ; then 
two small boys ; then a girl with a round face, 
short brown curly hair, brown eyes, turned-up 
nose, a big mouth, thick lips, large shoulders, 
short waisted. That girl was me. 

As it was my really first dehut before the 
unknown public, I insisted on dressing myself 
up for the occasion. (I must have been ten 
years old then.) I put on a dress of light color, 
very short, a low waist and a black velvet 
bodice. It was summer; that bodice was very 
warm, but I would not go without it. My sis- 
ters and my mother with the neighbors stood 
in the doorway laughing, and wishing us a good 
Yoyage. 

We were going five miles out of the city. 
We arrived before twelve o’clock, noon. 

I shall never forget my joy ; how my pride 
was satisfied ! I had about a hundred children 
around me. I had to answer all their ques- 
tions; they gave us so many fresh figs, wal- 


44 


maeietta’s good times. 


nuts, and so much wine that we could not eat 
much dinner when that hour came. 

Of course I had to leave them for a little 
while ; I had to lock myself in the grand hall 
with my troupe, to prepare the barrack for the 
. performance. 

We took out our big green linen curtain, 
and with the skeleton frame we soon made a 
house big enough to keep us four and the trunk 
that contained the puppets. 

You must know that I had a double speaking 
part ; for a queen, and for a common woman. 
Well, we rang the bell. The rector opened the 
big door, and the boys wanted to come in all 
at once. 

I stayed in the barrack until I had made my 
first speech, and then I went outside, to see 
what impression I had made on the boys. As 
I was standing outside our barrack, a boy came 
to me and offered to sell me a sparrow’s nest, 
with three little baby-sparrows in it ; he asked 
me three cents for it, but after looking inside 


HOW I PLAYED THE QUEEN. 


45 


my pockets I found only a cent and a half ; as 
he could get no more, we struck the bargain. 

I was so taken up with my sparrows that I 
forgot all about my next queen-speech. At first 
1 noticed some fingers pointing at me, but I 
could not make out what it meant ; then one 
of the boys inside the barrack, as he was hold- 
ing a brigand, thought best to shout for me ; I 
heard only these words in our dialect (which 
is Lombard), due in English it 

means “ Poppet, where are you ? ” 

I took my sparrows with me in the barrack ; 
I laid them down carefully in the trunk where 
all the wooden performers lay ; I picked out 
my queen, and by sticking the middle finger of 
my right hand in her head, the thumb in one 
arm, and the other two fingers in her other 
arm, I raised her up on her throne just in time. 

A brigand was brought to her feet (of course 
you know that puppets have no feet, but the 
brigand supposed she had) and in a plaintive 
cantilena he told her his guilt. 


46 


maeietta’s good times. 


It happened thus, he said : 

One day he made up his mind to begin a 
good laborious life, so he went to a drug store 
and hired himself out ; he was to receive ten 
cents a day with meals, and he had to pound 
spices from morning at five till eve at nine. 
He worked very well for a couple of days, and 
one summer day while he was working as usual 
his padrone lay down to sleep under the portico, 
and told him (the brigand) to shoo off the flies 
from his face when he could. So Giovanni 
(that was the brigand’s name) pounded away 
for some time, and when he noticed the flies 
on his padrone’s face he shooed them off ; but 
one of them was so obstinate that, in spite of 
his attendance, she would sit always on his 
padrone’s nose. Giovanni got excited, as all 
Italians do ; took up his big iron pistone that 
he was using to pound the spices, and went for 
that obstinate fly. He killed it. And very 
proudly sat down waiting until his padrone 
should wake up to show him how well he 


HOW I PLAYED THE QUEEN. 


47 


obeyed him. He waited for a good while. 
When some customer came into the shop Giov- 
anni told him that his padrone was sleeping, 
and he told him he wished he would awake so 
that he could show him that dead fly. The 
customer went for the gendarmes ; when they 
came they told him that with the fly, he had 
killed his padrone, and they brought him before 
Her Majesty’s feet. He asked her pardon and 
mercy. 

The queen made him stand up, and then 
made her speech. She told her courtiers they 
were wrong in condemning a worthy servant 
like him, as he had only obeyed orders. She 
gave the brigand a bag of sequins, and told 
him next time to wait until the fly had rested 
on another place before killing her. Here the 
curtain dropped, while our showman played an 
unique march on his concertina. 

We rested a few minutes ; for refreshments 
we ate figs, bread and wine. I had to look out 
for my family of sparrows, they were crying 


48 


marietta’s good times. 


very loud. I started on feeding them the best 
way I knew. I took some bread, I chewed it 
up very much, and so moist I rolled it up in 
their mouths. I kept on until they shut their 
eyes, and their little stomachs stuck way out. 

Then it was time. We had to put our minds 
to the sacred panorama views ; I had to give 
the descriptions as they were passing on the 
wall. After each view and speech, the gray 
man’s concertina would give out a sigh or two 
like this : Oh ! hi ! ho ! 

At seven we finished our show ; they gave 
us more fresh figs, walnuts and wine, and two 
pretty gourds to me and the boys my com- 
panions. 


(Owr night-journey^ 

We stayed with them until the twilight, and 
then our caravan started ; we had increased, as 
I had my three sparrows. For about an hour 
or so I held them in their nests, but by and by 


OUR NIGHT-JOURNEY. 


49 


the wine, figs and walnuts told on me, and I 
thought best to set the nest inside the wagon 
in the rear, and join the boys ; as it was very 
dark we trusted the donkey’s knowledge, but 
the poor fellow perhaps was sleepy and shut 
his eyes as we did, and before we could tell 
how it happened we found ourselves all in a 
big ditch ; as we tried to pull the donkey up, he 
opened his mouth and gave forth one of his 
melodies, so that we had to let him go, as we 
got scared ; the dogs began to bark and howl, 
the old gentleman called all the saints to help 
him, and I, for the first time, wished myself at 
home. 

- We remembered that there were on the 
wagon the ends of the two candles we had 
used on our stage ; so we lighted them. At 
that new light the donkey cried again, but we 
got him out, and started anew on the road ; 
this time we really looked like gypsies, and 
when the candles cast our shadows on the 
ground — the dogs, and the donkey with his 


60 


makietta’s good times. 


big ears, I tell you I forgot sparrows, show and 
fame. 

We three children held on to the rear of the 
wagon. I only remember that we talked very 
slowly indeed, and finally we were dumb. At 
last I saw the door of our big house, and the 
people gathered there to welcome us home ; 
but what they really said, I could not make 
out. I saw my mother coming towards me, 
and kindly take me by the hand ; but after 
that, I don’t remember anything more. 

On Monday eve, twenty-four hours after- 
ward, I woke up in my bed ; my mother said 
I had slept all that time. Gradually the past 
came back to me ; I remembered my poor spar- 
rows — they looked still satisfied, their stomachs 
beat a little. I dressed myself and went to see 
the boys. One was up, but the other was sleep- 
ing still. 

The old showman taught me how to feed 
my birds ; he made me give them an egg. He 
boiled it hard, he took out the yolk and ate it 


OUR NIGHT-JOURNEY. 


51 


himself ; with the white he mixed some Indian 
meal and very little water, then he rolled it up 
and fed my sparrows. 

I was very much obliged to him for having 
taught me to feed them, but I grudged that 
yolk ! After a few days I found one of my 
birds dead; I thought of making some profit 
with the others, as they cost me about three 
cents (that is three whites of eggs, as I ate my 
yolks now). 

I traded one for a pretty cage, and so Num- 
ber Three had a nice house all to himself. 

I always attended school regularly, but that 
Monday I felt too dizzy, and I was kept busy 
telling my last Sunday’s adventures to the 
neighbors. 

Our old Veronese had to go to another city, 
so I kissed his two good intelligent dogs, and 
wished him a good voyage ; although I had a 
hope to see him again, I never did. I am afraid 
he is dead now. 


IV. 


(My accomplishments.) 

T WENT two years to the Normal School, 
afterward I spent all my school days at 
the Convent of the Dorothea. 

I shall never forget the good nuns. I was 
the only girl there that never had a father or 
mother to bring a complaint against her, and 
when some stranger came to the school, and 
asked who I was, the nuns would answer: 

“ Oh ! she is the daughter of the American.” 

As they knew that I liked an out-door life it 
was always me that they sent out to do errands, 
and I took care of the fresh flowers that girls 
would bring every morning. In the winter we 
girls had to furnish firewood for our school, 
and any morning you could see us girls each 


52 


MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 


53 


with a fagot in our arms, going towards the 
convent. 

They — I mean the nuns — never could get 
me to work more than two afternoons at the 
same job. I learned to knit, to embroider, to 
put good pieces into torn stockings ; I cut out 
paper designs, and one year I took ninety-two 
pieces of dress goods, all of the same kind of 
material, and by joining them nicely I made me 
a skirt ; it was so well joined that the nuns made 
me show it at the examination. I learnt to cro- 
chet and to make paper flowers, especially lilies ; 
I made two large stalks of them for our altar, 
and I saw them still there when I left the con- 
vent ; I helped to decorate their church. 

(How we gam a play.) 

We had a good theater. We used to give 
such plays as these ; “ St. Elisabeth of Hun- 
gary,” “ David and Saul,” and many others of 
the same character. Not to bother the stu- 


54 


marietta’s good times. 


dents, the nun Maria Colomba (that was her 
name) would take us into the cellar to rehearse. 

At 4 p. M., school being finished, we would 
meet and arrange for outside plays. The mother 
of two school- girls was the janitress of a large 
soldiers’ barrack. All our barracks were origi- 
nally Jesuit convents; in some of them you 
could still see their old theaters kept in good 
order, and when I was in Brescia, at the Barrack 
Jesuit, the soldiers themselves gave some good 
performances; but only gentlemen were ad- 
mitted, and it was a soldier that impersonated 
the woman-part. This barrack being empty at 
that time we girls at the nunnery thought our- 
selves lucky to be allowed to use it. 

Accordingly we studied a play, the title of 
which I forget now ; but I remember I had the 
part of a friar. I remember this because on that 
occasion I lost for my father a very pretty, long 
rosary made of some fruit-seed which had been 
sent to him from Rome. We always dressed in 
genuine costumes and had genuine accessories. 


HOW WE GAVE A PLAY. 


55 


Well, after we had learnt our parts well, we 
put our attention to the arrangement of our 
theater. As we opened the door we found 
ourselves in a very long, low-studded room, 
with a whitewashed brick floor. At the end 
of it we begun by hanging our blankets ; at the 
sides and at the tops (as our blankets were gray) 
we put long red shawls horizontally and that 
made the front of the stage rather flnished as 
we had another blanket for the drop curtain ; 
we made two wings at each side with two table- 
cloths; we had no boards to make the stage 
with, so we stood on the floor which we cov- 
ered with real grass and daisies. 

As our audience had to pay only a cent each, 
of course they were willing to sit Arab fashion. 
For the back scenery we borrowed an old store 
awning (ours are of green linen and when they 
fade they are of a very pretty color) ; that awn- 
ing we nailed on the wall ; and in front and on 
the sides we put down real branches of elder, 
mulberry, weeping willow, with sunflowers. 


56 


marietta’s good times. 


I tell you that by the light of six candles, that . 
we placed at the foot, with paper behind them, 
our stage looked splendid. We bought the 
candles with the money that we got from our 
audience; for you must know that we sold our 
tickets in advance as we had no funds, and we 
wanted to be sure about our expenses. 

Except at the last act, the scene was laid near 
the friar’s grotto. W e made that grotto up with 
two large chairs ; we put a cloth on top of them, 
t^en we placed real stones on it and around, and 
we put lots of straw under. 

Sunday morning we went to mass, and we 
asked permission to be dispensed from the Sun- 
day-school, and after eating our dinner in a 
hurry we went to our theater. We had twenty- 
eight paying patrons, boys and girls ; we let in 
for nothing the owners of the draperies. 

I, the friar, had to be found lying down when 
the curtain lowered ; as we could not make our 
curtain to raise and fold up, we just sewed the 
two top ends to two strings, and let it down. 


HOW WE GAVE A PLAY. 


57 


where it rested nicely at the foot of the stage, 
and there the audience saw me, a nice fat friar, 
resting on the straw of the grotto. I said my 
monologue, and then the Cavaliere came in. (I 
forgot to tell you that we had no boys in our 
company ; so the Cavaliere was a girl.) The 
girl Cavaliere begun to look around when I 
came out, and said : 

“ W elcome, O, Cavaliere ! my house is to 
thee ; make use of it as if it belonged to thee.” 
I had to say all this in a tremulous voice as I 
was an eighty-year-old friar. Meanwhile the 
little bitings that I felt now and then on my 
ankles were getting too strong to be borne, so 
that I had to interrupt my speech, and forget- 
ting my solemn dress and part, I raised my left 
foot and scratched my right one. I heard a 
roar of laughter; before I could think of the 
reason my audience having quieted down a lit- 
tle, I proceeded. We went very well for a 
while, when we heard from the audience this 
alarming shout: 


58 


marietta’s good times. 


“ Madonna^ quantc peauless / ” 

In English : “ Holy Mother, how many 

fleas!” 

Every one begun to get up and look at their 
stockings ; there they saw millions of them ! 
They ran for the door and left. 

We actors opened the blinds and blew out 
our candles, and began to look at our stockings. 
W ell, originally they were white, now we found 
them black — so thick and big those fleas 
were! 

I did not stop to take off my clerical robe, I 
ran opposite to my house ; I ran there with my 
girl-clothes on my arms ; my mother had to 
put me to bed so as to change my clothes the 
quickest. 

As it was not our fault that the performance 
was interrupted, we agreed to compromise; 
they, I mean our audience, were to pay us half 
a cent each and we would give them the whole 
play in a better room, which we did on the fol- 
lowing Sunday, minus my rosary. 


HOW I MADE ANGEL DOLLS. 


59 


{How I made angel dolls.) 

I always had a good memory, and as I love 
children the nuns put me to teach the little 
ones, and they all liked me, as I made them 
study without their knowing it. 

I read aloud their lessons, giving the expres- 
sion with my hands and eyes as preachers do. 
They liked it so much that unconsciously they 
did it too (monkey-like) ; and then I would make 
them angel dolls. I bought the heads and hands, 
and then I cut out for each the little body and 
rolled it in the way Italians keep their own 
babies from the time we are born. 

They take us and put a chemise on ; then the 
nurse puts us on her knees ; first she folds us 
in a large square linen cloth; then she takes 
another piece of linen, and rolls that around our 
body too, but this one she puts under the arms. 
Then the rolling begins ; she takes three metri 
(meters) of a bandage ten inches wide. Some- 
times it is white, but generally it is weaved in 


60 


marietta’s good times. 


two colors, white and red, or white and blue, 
in pretty designs. That bandage is first done 
up like any surgeon’s bandage, with the two 
strings inside (wrong side out, of course) ; she 
begins by putting our tiny arms down straight 
at our sides— like the mummies— and the band- 
age goes around us ; but as it is easier for the 
nurse to turn us over on her lap, she keeps on 

m 

turning us until the bandage has reached our 
feet ; there she gives it a pull, turns over the 
end of the piece of linen, and ties the feet. 
While she is doing this we keep perfectly quiet. 
I think we feel a little dizzy. 

After that she puts us on a large pillow made 
on purpose. It is a long pillow, and large 
enough to come almost together over our body, 
and it is stuffed with wool ; she fastens it around 
us with three strings; this pillow is trimmed 
according to the circumstances of the family of 
that baby ; she puts on our little heads a fine 
little white cap, and then we are ready for the 
promenade. 


Hi 



ITALIAN BABY AND NURSE. 







HOW A BABY ENJOYS HIS CERCHIO. 61 


I treated the angel dolls I made for the 
little ones in the same way. 

{How a baby enjoys his Cerchio,) 

As soon as an Italian baby begins to show 
strength in his limbs, he is put in the “ Cerchio ” 
or “ Cercle,” a sort of a hen-coop, large at the 
bottom, and narrow enough at the top to hold 
baby in it ; it is made of wicker and weaved 
very open ; the upper part is lined with horse- 
hair ; on the outsides there is a small rail large 
enough to hold playthings for him. 

When baby gets tired he makes himself small 
and sometimes he almost disappears under the 
Cerchio ; then he is taken up and put to be^, 
or to crawl on the floor. 

But wh^n he gets stronger he not only 
pushes that Cercle^ but you might see him any 
time in the streets or piazzas taking hold of it 
and running; to see him reminds you of a 
rooster when he gets ready to fight; and some- 


62 


marietta’s good times. 


times the babies will fight, particularly when 
there are several of them in one street ; for each 
knows enough to desire some other baby’s toys. 

At first they would put forth their tiny hands, 
and with their arms outstretched beg for the 
other fellow’s plaything; then as the baby sees 
that his pleading is all lost, he raises his Cerchio 
and starts for his enemy who, seeing him coming, 
grabs hold of his own Cerchio^ and off he goes 
toward his mother. Sometimes three or four 
babies get together ; then, as they tip toward 
each other, it is really fun to watch them. The 
economical mothers to save washing generally 
pin their young one’s clothes pretty well up, so 
we have no trouble to see their movements. 

.There is another kind of Cerchio made ; it is 
shaped like a bench, only it has a board at the 
bottom of it. Sometimes that board is covered 
with a piece of matting. At the top of the 
bench-shaped one they insert a board with a 
hole in it to receive baby in, and that board 
runs on casters on the sides. With this kind 


OUR MOUNTAIN HOUSES. 


68 


of Cercles the baby will learn to turn, as it is 
generally two meters long ; and the mother can 
do her house-duties without being afraid that 
her baby will run away, as is the case with the 
other kind of Cerchio. 

A little later on we give a variety to the baby 
by putting a sort of a brace (made of strong 
linen) around his little body, and we hold on to 
the two long stout reins ; harnessed thus, the 
baby has his little hands free, and his shoulders 
don’t get dislocated. 

Around the neck the baby of the poor people 
has a string with a piece of “altea root” — 
marsh-mallow root — attached to it. It is very 
good for the baby to chew, as it is hard and 
pleasant to the taste. 

( Our mountain houses of refreshment,) 

Our city of Brescia is surrounded by moun- 
tains and hills. On those hills scattered all 
around are the peasants’ houses. They are very 


64 


marietta’s good times. 


large, all made of bricks, stones and mortar, 
with big doors large enough for the large 
wagons drawn by oxen to go through them. 

Outside of those houses you could see differ- 
ent signs hanging from a balcony or door ; some 
have the signs painted, some written in strong- 
colored paint, describing the arrival of a country 
party ; such words coming out of their mouths 
as they are holding a glass of wine in their 
hands : 

“ Drink, drink, compare^ or I shall kill you,” 
and the other answers : “ Rather than be killed, 
compare^ I wall drink.” 

Some only have the inscription on ; they gen- 
erally write on them these words, Y%no Buono, 
But they all have a garland hanging from the 
door ; it is made of laurel or juniper. Every- 
thing invites you inside. 

When you have passed the big door you find 
yourself in a large orchard, with a vine trellis 
almost all over it. Our vines are arranged as 
porticoes, just high enough for a tall man to 


OUR MOUNTAIN HOUSES. 


65 


walk under them. Under those vines the peas- 
ants have put strong, roughly-constructed tables. 
Generally the legs of these tables are trunks of 
trees. The house itself always has a portico 
with a wooden balcony or two that surrounds 
all the inside of the house ; some houses have 
a portico and a balcony outside too. 

When Sunday comes, we all go, rich and poor. 
Either we take our own victuals cooked, or to 
be cooked, or else we go with empty hands, and 
order our dinner there. 

As there are several of these houses, we take 
our choice, and change the place when we like. 

We like to eat birds on the spit; and such 
spits we have ! Some of them date back many, 
many years. Some are turned by a boy, and 
some have clock-work to make them go. 

To make the children leave those clocks 
alone, they tell us that the weights that hang 
from them are loaded with gunpowder and they 
will go off if we touch them ; so we stand there, 
and look at the weights lowering, lowering 


66 


marietta’s good times. 


themselves until they touch the floor. (Some- 
times those kitchens have no floor ; it is made 
of sand, like the portico outside.) Then the 
man in attendance will wind the clock up again 
until the birds are cooked. 

Such a sight for a child ! 

The man tells us that the birds will be cooked 
when they smoke from their mouths. So as 
we see that long-waited-for smoke come out of 
their mouths, we children give a shout. 

As to the place to eat them, we don’t 
trouble ourselves much about it, as we are 
free to eat them anywhere we please ; in the 
kitchen, the balcony, or under the beautiful 
vines. 

There on any afternoon on Sundays you could 
see us cittadins^ of all classes, partaking of the 
good things that were served to us by a very 
pleasant contadina. 

Those people are smart ; they keep the old 
contadina in the kitchen, and let all her young 
ones come out in their Sunday clothes and serve 



A YOUNG CONTADINA. 


67 



•* '* 4 . 







OUR' MOUNTAIN HOUSES. 


67 


out the good wine (their own) in jugs and bowls 
made of terra cotta. 

We had to bring our own forks, knives and 
spoons, and napkins. 

The young contadina is very happy when we 
praise her place and wine. She generally wears 
white stockings, slipshods, a short skirt of her 
own made linen ; the waist of the dress is very 
short, shirred at the bottom in the middle of the 
waist, the sleeves shirred from the shoulder to 
the elbow, then plain for a few inches, then 
shirred again to the wrist. She is very skillful 
with her needle, and you see from her own 
stockings what beautiful work she knitted in 
them. Also the bottom of her petticoat, and 
the top of her underwaist, will show you that 
she can embroider. 

The shirts of their men are all made from 
their own spun linen, and embroidered very 
finely all over their fronts. 

With that costume she wears a colored velvet 
or foulard shawl over her shoulders, very low 


68 


marietta’s good times. 


on the neck, a necklace of coral or garnets ; 
sometimes a contadina will carry a pound and 
a half of them around her neck, with long ear- 
rings to match. Her hair is done up in large 
braids ; she combs it early every Sunday morning. 

Of course the every day costume differs a good 
deal; these young women only wear wooden 
slipshods, no stockings, and a cotton shawl. 

In those houses we always get a good soup, 
and then birds, chickens, and ribs of pork*broiled 
on a big grill. We always like to eat birds 
cooked on the spit. 

We cook them thus; we take a bird, we 
string him on a spit, then we take a flat piece 
of porksteak, in the middle of it we stick some 
sage, we roll that up and string it by the side 
of the bird ; and we keep on until the spit is 
full. During the cooking, of course, the attend- 
ant throws a gravy at intervals on the birds 
with a large spoon. 

Well, our dinner beipg ready, and our place 
selected, we sit down to enjoy it, with the good 


OUR CRICKETS. 


69 


wine. I tell you, it is nice to sit down in the 
open air, always dry and warm ! We are not 
obliged to hear a bad orchestra; if we don’t 
like the fiddle, or the fiutist that volunteers to 
play at our dinner, we are free to tell him to 
try his music a little farther on. Sometimes 
we have very good musicians. They make a 
very good living, as they are treated well with 
food and money. 

We are free to go all around the place, and 
by paying a few cents we can eat all the fruit 
we want from the trees or the grapes from 
the vine, and that is the very best way to 
enjoy fruit. 

We dance and keep merry until sunset, then 
we begin to descend towards home. 

{Our Crickets.) 

We children are quite sleepy by that time, 
as we have run all day chasing locusts and 
hunting crickets. 


70 


marietta’s good times. 


To catch the crickets we drop a little water 
in their holes where we hear them sing. They 
come out to see if it rains, and we catch them 
in surprise. We take with us a little cage that 
a man makes on purpose in our market. 

It is about three inches square. He sells a 
cage at a cent each. The cages are made thus : 
he takes two pieces of board three inches square 
and in one of them he sticks lots of bits of wire 
all of the same length, then he puts the other 
board on top ; the wires are put very close to- 
gether. By pulling up one wire you make a 
door for Mr. Cricket to go in. The man puts a 
ring on top of each cage — all for a cent. 

Well, when we get a cricket we give him a 
lettuce leaf every day, and we set our cages out- 
side our windows. As we generally have more 
than one cage the music at times is very lively. 


V, 


{How we helped make wine.) 

JJERHAPS our way of making wine is not 
a clean way, but it tastes very good, 
nevertheless. 

I remember leaving home early in the morn- 
ing with lots of girls and boys and going out in 
one of the faubourgs, where we would halt and 
ask some peasant boy the nearest farmhouse 
where they were making wine. After he told 
us the place thither we would go. 

But we don’t rush at once into the court- 
yard, oh, no ! we stand at a certain distance, 
studying the faces of the farmers. According 
to their looks we advance, first very timidly, 
and we wait to see what air is blowing, as we 
say in our country ; we wait for some bunches 


71 


72 


marietta’s good times. 


of grapes to drop out of their baskets or vats. 
When a bunch falls out we run and pick it up 
and return it to its owner ; he generally tells 
us to eat it. Then after having disposed of 
that bunch, we are at their service to help. 

I must tell you now how this work of wine- 
making begins. 

First of all the farmers, when their grapes 
are ripe, hire lots of girls and boys from the 
city ; these girls and boys hire themselves out 
for the season, and in the meantime they take 
the grape-cure. And that goes naturally; as 
they don’t get much meat at the farmer’s house, 
they eat bread or polenta and many grapes. 

To pick the grapes they all go on a team. 
On the team there are lots of large baskets, 
and sometimes they have a vat too. A man or 
boy takes hold of the oxen’s heads as the team 
drives under those portico-shaped vines; and 
there amid the singing and chatting the young 
people work and pick away. 

Well, after the grapes are all picked, they 


HOW WB HELPED MAKE WINE. 


73 


drive to the house, and they put all the grapes 
in the vats. Then two or three men get into 
the vats, in shirt sleeves, theii- pants rolled up 
high on their legs, and with bare feet they step 
and step upon the grapes until all the juice 
comes out of them. 

The vats have a hole in the bottom, with a 
wooden faucet, and thus they draw their wine, 
which runs into another utensil, that we call 
“ Gerla panierP It is made of the same kind 
of wood as the vats, and is shaped so that it 
fits the back of a man ; he straps it on his 
shoulders, and he puts that wine in another 
tank in the cellar. There they leave it to 
ferment. 

It is while this business goes on that we chil- 
dren stand ready with our long squash stems. 

We dip these squash stems in the panier^ 
and draw the wine up at the other end. In 
drinking the wine in that way you don’t seem 
to realize the quantity you take ; as it is very 
sweet it goes down like syrup. 


74 


marietta’s good times. 


But when one of those men sends us away, 
and while waiting for another chance, we sit 
down ; then we begin to feel funny. At first 
we chatter away very merrily indeed, then we 
begin to feel heavy, and our stomachs get hot ; 
we lie quietly down on the grass and we are 
lucky that slumber overtakes us, as during that 
period the wine boils, ferments, in our stomachs 
as the other wine ferments in the cellar. These 
slumbers sometimes last several hours, and when 
we awake we find ourselves in the farmers’ 
kitchens. 

W ell, for that day we have a good time. 

Next day we go to another place, where they 
take the squeezed grapes and put them in the 
Torchio or press. With that they get the 
second wine ; after that is squeezed they take 
the seed of the grapes and put it on a large 
paved space in the yard. If the farmer doesn’t 
have a proper space, he generally puts it in 
front of a church ; as there is a nice square 
marble place. When that seed is dried siifii- 


HOW WE ENJOYED WATER-MELONS. 75 


ciently they press it, and with another ingredient 
they make the aqiiavita, 

(How we enjoyed water-melons^ 

The water-melon business is one of the 
many traffics that go on in our city. 

We have melons that come from Ferrara, 
and we have our own that grow just outside 
our city gates. 

When the season begins every fountain in our 
city is utilized, as every person that means to sell 
water-melons secures the fountain near her home. 

The venders all lay in a large stock of them, 
and they store them in a roughly-made board 
inclosure near the fountain. They leave 
enough space in a corner of that hut to sleep 
in, as they camp out during the melon season. 

At the front of the inclosure they place a 
table or two, with two or three chairs ; these 
serve as a barricade as well as give the appear- 
ance of a shop. 


76 


marietta’s good times. 


They next take a long wood or tin tube and 
attach it to one of the spouts of the fountain ; 
the other end of it goes into a large wooden vat 
where there are always several melons to cool. 

If a customer wants a cool melon for his 
dinner, he goes to these people and picking up 
one he has it out to see that it is to his satisfac- 
tion, and after bargaining for it, sometimes a 
quarter of an hour, he makes a sign on the 
melon, and sets it in the vat until he goes home 
to dinner. The vat being tipped a little, the 
water keeps changing. Near the tables and 
above them they place a large keg and they fill 
it with water. Around the keg they put some 
branches of mulberry, and from the bottom of 
it comes out a long small tin pipe that goes 
under the table and comes up through it. 

We Italians cut our melons into small slices 
for the children, and they cost a centime each ; 
we keep the middle part for the old people or 
whosoever chooses to pay two or three cents for 
it, as this middle is the^est part of the melon. 


WHEN MELONS WERE ABUNDANT. 


77 


It is around these tables that you could have 
seen us children watching the beautiful sj)rays 
that that little tin spout of water threw all over 
the table, washing the cut melons, and keeping 
the flies away. 

When night comes all those tents, with their 
numerous colored Venetian lanterns hanging 
around them always with the red shade thrown 
on the melon — oh, they really look like gypsies’ 
tents. 


( When melons were abundant^ 

I remember in 1866 when we had the chol- 
era in the city of Brescia, that the Government 
used the barrack that we girls had made our 
stage in, and later on as the morbus increased 
they used another barrack that was also oppo- 
site our house. 

Well, in that year I ate more melons than at 
any other time. 

As the Government had prohibited them as 


78 


marietta’s good times. 


unhealthy things, we children would go to those 
farmers that grew them, and for two or three 
cents he would let us go and pick our melon 
from its ground. As the melons were too 
warm, we would put them in one of the many 
streams that surround our city. 

There we sat, waiting for our water-melon to 
cool, and to kill time we counted all our friends 
we had* before the cholera took them away ; 
and when we heard a cicala sing, we would 
shake the tree that held her, and as we caught 
her, we would tie her leg with a piece of 
thread, and keep her there on the grass until 
we had another; then we would bet a piece 
of the melon on the one that took flight first. 

After we had scratched their stomachs to 
hear them sing, we let them go. 

(How we tried to smuggle a melon.) 

After having enjoyed our melon one day we 
went back to the farmer’s house and bought 


HOW WE TRIED TO SMUGGLE A MELON. 79 


another, with the idea of smuggling it inside 
the city gate, but as it was our first adventure in 
that kind of work of course we did not succeed. 

We had arrived just outside the gate, and 
having put our melon under a shawl, we pro- 
ceeded very bold indeed ; but as one of the 
dogatiieri approached towards us, we turned 
very red in the face and started to run inside 
of the city ; between the gate and the doganieri 
house there are about fifty feet ; if you succeed 
to pass that limit you are all right, as even if 
the doganiere should discover that you carry 
smuggled goods with you he has no more right 
to stop you. 

But we felt guilty, and the old doganiere 
knew it too. As he touched me on the shoulder 
I let go my melon and stood still. He did not 
scold us, but he refused to let us enter the city 
with that melon ; and warned us not to eat it. 

He was horrified when we told him that we 
had eaten another already. We offered a nice 
piece to him, but he refused it. 


80 


marietta’s good times. 


Well, we took our melon outside the gate 
again. We sat on the grass and ate it under the 
glances of that poor old doganiere. 

This poor old superstitious man died that 
following night of cholera. We children were 
glad to know that it was not our melon that 
caused his death. 

(How we kept light hearts.) 

That day after having enjoyed a feast (after 
our fashion) outside the city we started to 
enter, and then we had some more excitement. 

They had established at every city gate a 
little room with two doors facing each other ; 
every person that came from outside had to 
go through one of these doors and remain 
there about five minutes to get fumigated. In 
that room there were five howls full of dis- 
infectants, and a guard stationed there would 
stir them up once in a while. 

We children did not mind the fumigation, 


HOW WE KEPT LIGHT HEARTS. 


81 


but there were some old superstitious farmers 
that did not like it. That day we saw a few 
persons gathered around the door, and they 
were laughing at a poor farmer because he did 
not want to go in, and most of all he did not 
want that the doganieri should put his donkey 
in there. After some talk he concluded to turn 
back and try the other gates before going 
home. 

It was not an unusual thing to meet an 
ambulance with some unfortunate in it. When 
we met one we would try to look into it, and if 
we could not recognize the person we would 
ask his or her name, then we would run to give 
the news to everybody. 

That day we went to visit several places, 
helping around the house, and crying with the 
rest of the family. In one place the sanitary 
officers came, and prohibited us to leave that 
room before we underwent the fumigations. 
As that took time and we did not return home 
until very late, we found all our families to- 


82 


marietta’s good times. 


gether, wondering what had become of us. 
When we told them our adventures, they were 
very alarmed, and thought best to scold us. 

Well, in time the cholera left us, and our 
beautiful city began to have the happy look 
around her again. 

(^How we were all Garibaldians.) 

The war of 1866 turned the heads of our 
boys and girls. 

Every house had some Garibaldians in it ; 
all the dialects were heard in the streets ; every- 
body looked excited and acted so, but always 
in good humor. 

Of course I was there with the rest of them, 
when one day by order of the Government 
hundreds of gunstocks found to be defective 
were sold at one of our piazzi ; I stood there 
in the crowd and bought two of them at five 
cents apiece, for a woman’s children, just to 
amuse them and to keep them quiet until the 





GARIBALDI 


4 , 




HOW WE WERE ALL GARIBALDIANS. 83 


Garibaldians should have left the city ; every 
boy over five, years old wanted to leave home 
to go with Garibaldi to the victory. 

Besides the regular Garibaldi lodgers we had, 
my father every night would accommodate two 
or three fellows gratis, and my house looked 
like a camp as every morning we saw those 
tired fellows lying on our large sofa cushions. 

My older sister was kept busy making num- 
bers in worsted on flags and berettes. Every 
cittadin wore something red. 

Garibaldi was stationed at a short distance 
from our city, and he sent word that he would 
take any fellow able to fight, provided he had 
a permission from his parents. Every boy in 
town quitted work ; they all turned Garibaldi’s 
followers. Twenty-four hours after the decree 
of Garibaldi was posted on our city corners, 
there were very few boys indeed that had not 
at least red caps on their heads. The more 
lucky ones had some good clothes to pawn, and 
those came out in a red shirt also. 


84 


marietta’s good times. 


But that was not quite enough ; the permis- 
sion from the family was the hardest thing to 
get possession of. Some families had already 
two boys in the army, and the would-be Gari- 
baldino was only thirteen or fourteen years old : 
so they refused the permission. 

Every morning early the doganieri were 
asked to open the gates as a company of ten or 
twelve boys wanted to go and present them- 
selves to Garibaldi. Some of these boys had a 
permission, but some of them made them out 
themselves. 

Well, two days afterward you might have 
seen eight or ten of those same boys returning 
home very crest-fallen. 

Garibaldi thought they were too young, or 
he detected the false signatures. 

Then you might have heard the jokes from 
the smaller boys that had to stay at home ; 
some of these jokes went thus: “Well, why 
. didn’t you change your shirt ? ” or “ Why didn’t 
you paint some mustaches on your lips ? ” 


HOW WE WERE ALL GARIBALDIANS. 85 


The excitement among the girls was not less. 
Every girl wanted to be a vivandiere ; and girls 
are harder to conquer, so many of them were 
more successful than the boys. Every house 
contained at least one would-be vivandiere. 

They looked over their wardrobes to see if 
there was a blue flannel petticoat or a piece of 
red flannel for making a shirt. They too 
pawned their jewelry to buy the proper mate- 
rial : a blue flannel petticoat trimmed with red 
or white braid, red shirt, large brimmed hat 
with a cockade of white, red and green on it ; a 
Giherna and a flask to swing on her shoulders ; 
strong leather boots and white leather gaiters. 

We in our house alone had four girls pre- 
paring themselves for the campaign. 


VI. 


( The Square of the Greens.) 

have in Brescia several Piazzas.^ or 
“ Squares,” as you call them. One is 
called piazza delle erbe., square of the herbs, or 
greens ; that Square is surrounded on two sides 
with low porticos under which you could drink 
the best chocolate that is made in the world, 
and buy the fresh paparelle and twenty or 
more kinds of macaroni. 

At one end of this Square there is an old 
palace ; the inside of it is used for a theater, 
and several offices; but the outside of it is 
hired by some market people. I have been in 
their fonda a great many times buying nuts, 
filberts curuhule^ and chestnuts in every style ; 
that is : plain as they are picked, dried in their 


86 


MY DUCKLING. 


87 


shells, and out of their shells ; and we could 
buy them strung up in twine at two cents a 
string, and I could buy for a cent enough chest- 
nut flour to fill my mouth several times. Some 
old women made a pudding or polenta (that 
they baked at the baker’s) of this flour, and 
they sold it to us at a cent a pound. 

All those things are sold in the porticoes; 
and all around the palace, which is very high, 
are hung up brooms of all kinds, and straw, 
correggia and wicker baskets ; they cost from 
two cents up. 


(^My duckling.) 

Although the marketing is carried on in the 
open air, and with the appearance of not hav- 
ing separate places, they all know where to go 
with their merchandise. If you should want 
to buy some birds or chickens, you would have 
to go right to the corner near the church ; there 
you will find all the birds, alive, or strung up 


88 


marietta’s good times. 


on fine sticks of wood by the dozen. They 
sell chickens all prepared to cook ; but most of 
them are kept in cages, so that you may buy 
them alive. 

We, I mean our family, always kept a few 
chickens, before killing them. I and my sister 
saved our pennies, and when the season came 
that the farmers’ wives brought their chicks 
and ducklings to the market, we could buy 
two or three at a time. 

One day a poor old woman came to our city, 
and she had a round basket with the cover on ; 
she sat down on the steps that surround our 
fountain, and while eating her lunch she thought 
to give freedom to her ducklings ; so she opened 
her basket, and let them amuse themselves in 
the little puddle, in front of her ; but they were 
not used to the city noises, and they began to 
wander around too much. When the poor old 
woman wanted to put them back into the bas- 
ket, she had hard work. . I volunteered to help 
her, and in recompense she gave me a pretty 


MY DUCKLING. 


89 


little yellow one. I ran home with joy, and 
put him with the rest of our collection. 

Well, while he was little, I managed to give 
that duckling a bath in the house. My mother 
let us put our menagerie in the attic; we had 
four chicks, a big rooster that went for our legs 
every time we passed near him, two rabbits 
and five guinea pigs, beside that duckling. 

When he grew too big to bathe in the house, 
I had to take that duckling down four flights 
of stairs and put him in the big fountain in 
the Square. He got so used to it that as soon 
as he saw me he would run toward me, and 
when I was taking him downstairs and coming 
back after his bath he would put his head around 
my neck, just like a baby. It was all right when 
he was dry, but when he was wet — well, I 
looked as if I had had a bath myself too. 

Finally he got too heavy for me to carry 
him, and my mother had to kill him. I could 
not eat him ; I cried very much, and we have 
still the feathers of his tail. 


90 


marietta’s good times. 


The rooster was getting too cross, so he too 
had to go. The chickens were spared as they 
laid eggs ; it is true sometimes they only had a 
thin shell, but they were very good all the same. 

If you don’t like to kill your chickens the 
woman of the market will do it for you. 

(^Squares where we buy our food.) 

Well, further on, they sell fruit; then comes 
a row of cheese stalls, and there you could buy 
fresh butter churned that morning, and all kinds 
of cheese. They are sold by women dressed 
in very clean white aprons and over-sleeves, 
and when the sun gets too hot for their heads, 
instead of a hat, they put a cabbage leaf on top 
of them. 

Then, further on, they sell all sorts of greens. 
Then come the butchers’ stalls; they have 
wooden shutters and a big white or green um- 
brella over their wares. 

Fridays and Saturdays only you could see 


LITTLE-HANDS LEMONS. 


91 


the sale of fish — fresh-water fishes kept alive 
in tanks full of fresh water. 

In this Piazza we have a large fountain, and 
at its four corners there are four little ones; 
besides these there are several small fountains 
attached to the arcades. 

So the fish merchants put a wooden pipe to 
the spout of one of these little fountains, and 
thus they let the water run into and out of 
their tanks. 

I remember when my mother bought some 
sardines one day; she took them home and 
rolled them in flour, and when she was prepar- 
ing the oil to fry them in some of those sar- 
dines had jumped on the floor. 

(Little-hands lemons,) 

The square space allowed for the sale of 
lemons and oranges looks very well on a bright 
sunny day. There we children would stand, 
and bargain for our manine,, “little hands.” 


92 


marietta’s good times. 


This is a kind of a lemon that grows in Riviera 
di Salo ; it is shaped like little hands and feet, 
but the toes and fingers of these lemons are 
very distorted ; in the inside of the palm or the 
sole of the foot, there is a little juicy place 
the size of a cent — the rest of it is whole, 
thick and sweet. 

As the man sold them at a centime apiece, 
we children stood there generally an hour, 
selecting them according to our fancy. We 
never bought more than one soldo^s worth ; so 
when we had found just the distorted member 
we were looking for, and bought it, we would 
turn to our right and go straight to another 
man’s Square. 


( The Tyrol toys.) 

This man always kept his wares spread on a 
piece of straw matting ; they consisted of toys 
all made of wood ; he came from the mountains 
of Tyrol to Brescia when he was a boy. He 


THE TYROL TOYS. 


93 


had learned his trade at home, and lived in 
Brescia in company with a few of his country 
fellows. Once in a year he went to see his 
family. During his stay in our city, his folks 
prepared all the toys to be ready for him to 
take back. 

For a cent we could buy a bucket, or a salt 
mortar, or a table, and every article that a child 
needs to play doll-house with. And such a doll 
he would sell for a cent; it was about four 
inches tall, and all jointed, and the face and 
hair painted. His dolls were better propor- 
tioned than the dolls they sell at other places ; 
when our doll opened her arms she was as wide 
as tall. 

Then he had reed canes; with those we made 
our soap bubbles, and he sold six for a cent. 
Besides he sold distaffs for two cents apiece. 

Next to him there was the man that cut out 
hronzali to order ; these are pots that are hewn 
out by him from a solid piece of lava stone. 
To buy one of them is like playing at a lottery ; 


94 


marietta’s good times. 


because you might chance to have the pot cut 
out from a good stone, or it might turn out to 
be a bad stone so that you had to throw away 
the pot, as you never could succeed in having 
the bad smell driven out of it ; of course the 
man himself says he cannot tell, as the odor 
comes out after the pot is heated. 

( The man with the copper machine^ 

One summer there came to our market a tall 
young man. He selected a nice place, drove a 
few sticks in the ground, put a strong rope 
around them. Then he opened a large box 
that he had on a little wagon, and from that 
box he took out a shiny copper machine ; it 
was shaped like a Russian coffee-pot, only that 
under his machine he could build a fire, which 
he did that day. 

While the fire boiled some strange substances 
only known to him, he made a table out of his 
wagon ; then he put a large marble slab on it ; 


THE MAN WITH THE COPPER MACHINE. 95 


afterward he took from the same box hundreds 
of little wooden boxes. 

When he had placed all these things where 
he wanted them, he rolled up his sleeves (as he 
had a dress suit on) and he looked at us chil- 
dren and asked us if we wanted to help him ; 
he promised us five soldi each for that day, as 
our market hours only last until four in the 
afternoon. 

I stayed there in company with two other 
girls and two boys. At first he gave us some 
sheets of fine parafine paper, and we had to 
cut them up in small sizes like the pattern 
he gave us; then we had to open all the 
small boxes and prepare them with their tops 
underneath. 

While we were engaged thus he was talking 
very fast, and was putting several things on his 
marble slab ; after he had mixed them he put 
everything in that machine. He let these sub- 
stances boil for some time, and in all that time 
he had drawn a crowd. 


96 


marietta’s good times. 


Well, he told everybody that he came to our 
city to make and sell shoehlacking, but a shoe- 
blacking that we have never seen the like of 
before; and that he would sell it at only a 
soldo (a cent) a box, as soon as it was made ; 
and that he would remain two weeks, so that 
the purchasers could find out the quality of his 
blacking, and he advised them to buy lots of 
his blacking, as hO was not going to come back 
until the next year. 

Having said that and many other things, he 
looked at his watch, put out his fire, and opened 
a faucet attached to his pot. From that faucet 
we could see coming out the precious blacking. 

He only took a little of it at a time, enough 
to roll on the palm of his hand. After he had 
it flattened on the marble slab, he oiled his 
hands and made tiny balls of the blacking; 
afterward we children took it and put it into 
those boxes, placing a piece of parafine paper 
on each of them; after handling several of 
them, we could do the work very fast. 


HONORING THE MADONNA. 


97 


My mother did not know of my new voca- 
tion, and just imagine her surprise when she 
got near our wagon to see me there, my sleeves 
rolled up, with some blacking all over my face, 
shouting with the rest, and taking soldi as fast 
as I could deliver my boxes ! I told my 
padrone that that lady was my mother, and he 
presented her with two boxes. 

Well, it was no use for my mother to scold 
me, as I told her that I liked the job and I was 
getting fat over it. 

(Honoring the Madonna^ 

Our market is open for business from five in 
the morning until four in the afternoon ; after 
that hour each market man or woman gathers 
up his or her merchandise, sweeps her place, 
and leaves the rubbish in a pile. Afterward the 
city spazzini come, and sweep everything up, 
and wash the Square, by throwing water over it. 

The market people are very devout, and it 


98 


marietta’s good times. 


is they who maintain the handsome little church 
at the end of the market. When we have too 
much rain, they go to see the Madonna that 
stands in that church, and make a voto. They 
say to her that if she will send us some fair 
weather they will give her a nice silk dress. 
The same voto they make to her when we have 
too much dry weather ; then they ask for some 
rain. Whatever they promise to her they give. 

You could see on any day, if you choose to 
go in through the dark-green door of that 
church, how well-dressed the Madonna is, and 
what beautiful altar laces there are ; and that 
is only for every-day affairs. 

When the anniversary of that Madonna 
occurs, then you see the change among those 
market people. 

Every one of them from early morn are at 
the market as usual, but they are dressed in 
their Sunday clothes; they all wear all the 
jewelry they possess ; their heads are shining; 
the men wear immaculate white shirts, and 


HONORING THE MADONNA. 


99 


such watch chains and rings ! They are all 
shaved that day. 

During morning they take turns to go to 
hear mass ; that day they celebrate mass every 
hour until noon. At four that day they go 
visiting each other, drinking white wine and 
eating sponge cake. Then they turn their 
minds to the arrangements for the evening. 

For several feet away from the church they 
have hung all sorts of draperies, flowers and 
laurel; they have made festoons and arcades 
with them, with lot of Chinese lanterns (of 
our own make, though white, red and green, 
some with the stemma d? Italia painted in colors 
on them) as under those arcades the procession 
is going to pass. 

Well, at eight in the evening, all the singers 
and musicians meet at the church. At the 
sound of the argentine bells, the four cara- 
binieri march abreast; then come the musicians, 
then the priests and the choir-boys, and after 
comes the baldacchino carried by six strong mar- 


100 


marietta’s good times. 


ket men. The six tassels of this baldacchino, 
which is very richly embroidered in gold on a 
white antique satin, are held by six little girls, 
daughters of some of the market women. 

The Madonna is dressed in a white silk vel- 
vet dress, all embroidered with precious stones 
and gold. She wears real diamonds — a neck- 
lace and a crown. Her mantle, which is blue, 
is embroidered in silver. She has a beautiful 
brown wig on ; her curls fall down on her 
shoulders. By the light of hundreds of wax 
torches held by the market men, women and 
children, she looks really handsome. 

After the Madonna come the singers of both 
sexes. Although they cannot read music, they 
sing all in time, and very prettily. 

As they go around that section of the city 
where these market people live, it is generally 
about midnight before the show is over ; then 
they all disperse, each one with their family, 
and drinking some more white wine they go 
to sleep very happy. 


HONORING THE MADONNA. 


101 


At the church it is very different ; the hoys 
have to consign their white robes carefully to 
the sacristan, the candles are left as a present 
to the church, and the Madonna is carried into 
the sacristy, and there they undress her ; they 
put on her everyday dress again, and her every- 
day wig, and she is hoisted up again to her 
place at the altar. 

They let her have a little light all night. 
This light is very mild as it comes from a 
beautiful antique lampada hanging right in 
front of her. 


vn. 


(How we gathered violets and roses.) 

spring and fall have caused a great 
many poems to be written, but no matter 
how many there are or how well they are writ- 
ten, they will never give you the impression 
of the real Italian thing or of the real Italian 
effect. 

Think of us children of the country; our 
outdoor fun begins in May. 

That month is dedicated by us to going out 
in the fields, to gather violets and roses from 
the surrounding gardens. We would bring 
home pockets full of violets and large bunches 
of beautiful roses. 

I was always fond of little children, but at 
that time I insisted on taking with me only 


102 


HOW WE GATHERED VIOLETS AND ROSES. 103 


clean and neatly-dressed children; so on any 
day from May to October you could have seen 
a tall, fat girl going from house to house, col- 
lecting her favorites ; they were girls and boys, 
but they all wore petticoats. 

I had a big basket; in it I put all their 
lunches. 

I had to cross the city with my little happy 
troop. As I allowed them to play on their lit- 
tle instruments, as drums, trumpets and sharp 
whistles, the shopkeepers always knew when 
we were coming; if I had a few spare pennies 
I would invest them in a jumping frog, or a 
harlequin with a string attached to his arms 
and legs. 

When my little troop had to make a halt, we 
stopped on the steps of our Theater of La Scala, 
or on the steps of some church. There some 
of my children ate, and then played for their 
own pleasure and satisfaction; I meantime set- 
ting my jumping frog in position, or pulling 
the string of my harlequin ; after we rested we 


104 


MARIETTA S GOOD TIMES. 


started again, for Porta St. Navaro, or Porta 
Tonlunga. 

Although I made the children obey me they 
all liked me. They knew that if they did not 
behave they would get left at home the next 
day. At times I had as many as seven of 
them. 


( The miller* 8 Madonna cats.) 

Sometimes I took them near a flour mill that 
goes by water, or near some washing house. 

One day I took my charge inside of a mill 
house ; there the patient miller lectured to us. 
He showed us two large round stones; between 
them he put some corn, and then he set the 
mill a-going. While that corn was getting 
ground we children made friends with his 
numerous cats; they were all of gray color. 
We call them Madonna cats, because they have 
the letter M on their foreheads ; and of course 
they were all covered with white flour. 


AT LA BADIA. 


105 


They were used to the place and noise ; they 
looked happ3’^ and fat, as they walked around 
us purring, purring. 

We children believed the miller when he 
told us what that purring of theirs meant. He 
said they were saying their prayers. 

The good miller gave us some of his meal 
and white flour to make bread for our dolls. 
I had a doll until I was eighteen years old. 

(At La JBadia.) 

La Badia ! How that name made our child 
hearts happy ! La Badia is a convent kept by 
friars, two miles from our city ; to go to the 
Badia, you have to go along the same road that 
goes to the cemetery, and keep on until you 
come to a large stairway, very antique ; at the 
foot there is a large cross, with a rooster on it. 

This stairway is divided into four different 
ones ; each of them have different steps, some 
are high steps, some low, but all very broad at 


106 


MARIETTA S GOOD TIMES. 


the foot. As these stairways and the parapet 
on top of it is of white marble when the sun 
shines on them it is very dazzling to the eyes. 
But we Italians like bright things. 

At the top you find yourself in a large 
rotunda covered with all kinds of wild flowers. 
In the middle there is a church, and at the side 
is the convent of the frati della Badia. Every 
Sunday around that place is like a holiday or 
fair day, by the big crowd you see there. 

The men contadini go in one door of the 
church, the women at the other. They all 
come in their Sunday clothes and some women 
come with bare feet ; they carry their stockings 
and slipshods in their hands until they arrive 
at the church ; before entering it, they sit on 
the parapet, and put their things on. When 
they come out they take them off again. 

We children attended the Sunday-school in 
the city, and our teacher once in a while, would 
give us notice that on the following Sunday she 
would take us to the Badia. 


AT LA BADIA. 


107 


We knew what that meant; we prepared for 
that day our nice dresses; and that Sunday 
morning we all met at her house. Each girl 
carried her own bundle ; in it she put either 
some birds, cooked or to cook, and a pound of 
Indian meal and some salt and pepper ; another 
girl would take some pork chops, or sausages, 
and so on ; but always a pound or two of 
Indian meal, and her own plates and forks and 
tumbler. 

We each put five soldi in the hands of the 
teacher’s brother and when we were out of 
the city, he would go into a wine shop with 
his demijohn, and get it filled with good red 
wine, vino rosso as we call it. 

Then the teacher would buy some fresh fruit 
from the ortolani (orchard men), and when our 
little party arrived at the top of that stairway, 
we would sit down on the parapet, and look 
around. 

As our air is pure we could see for miles 
around. I always loved to see our corn when 


108 


marietta’s good times. 


it was laid out in the sun, either in the 
chia (its ear) or all grained. If you could see 
it once, you would never forget it ; at times to 
my eyes it looked like a mass of gold. 

Well, our teacher would think we had better 
go to the convent, and as we pulled that bell, 
which has an harmonious sound, a good-natured 
friar would come to the door ; we would give 
him our bundles, and he would listen patiently 
to our orders, and tell us to return at noon ; 
our dinner would be ready. 

To pass the hours we turned to our left, and 
found the deep stairway that leads to the 
woods. 

At first we found some oak-trees. We 
gathered lots of ghiande (acorns), as we knew 
that they would come good to us sometimes ; 
for instance, when we ate too much chestnut 
flour, or too many broiled little birds that we 
children were so fond of ; then our mothers 
would boil those acorns, and make a coffee 
with them — it is the best remedy for a stomach 


AT LA BADIA. 


109 


ache; I drank gallons of it during my stay 
in Brescia. 

Then we would go further on, and find lots 
of chestnuts — we had to pick those up, burrs 
and all; if you slip on those burrs you will 
remember it for a good while. They stick to 
your underclothing, and when you feel a prick 
and think to find the burr that does it, you fail. 

As we were gathering chestnuts and ghiande^ 
we would hear the sound of silvery bells that 
came from the convent ; so we would go back, 
and this time we rang at the refectory, and the 
door would be opened by another frate. We 
would see on entering the long table covered 
with the things we brought, only they were 
transformed in the best possible manner, and 
they smelled very good, I tell you. Then, 
after having said our noon prayer with the 
friar, he retired, and we began our feast. 

As we came to the dessert, each girl had to 
give a song or a sonetto ; I contributed the 
sonetto as I never had a voice to sing. 


i 


no 


marietta’s good times. 


Two o’clock came by ; at this time we left 
the refretorio^ and went out on the terrazza. 

Before leaving the Badia we went (as it is 
customary) into the church, and put some soldi 
in the box for the poor, and then we started 
for home. But although we would leave the 
Badia at such an early hour we never would 
reach our homes before sunset, as we would go 
visiting. Our contadini are very pious, and we 
girls would always take with us some Madonna 
chromos, and in return they would give us some 
good fruit, dried lavender, or some medlars to 
take home and put in our husk beds to get 
ripe. 


( The flowers of JSt. JohrUs Eve.) 

The eve of St. John we don’t go to bed at 
all. 

At sunset, the little square where St. John’s 
church stands is beginning to be filled up with 
flowers in all styles, cut, in pots and dried ; all 


THE FLOWERS OP ST. JOHN’s EVE. Ill 


the gardeners, amateurs and professionals, male 
and female, come to the little piazza of St. John 
to sell their wares, for with the flowers they 
also sell fancy baskets and picture frames, all 
made with some dried plants and flowers. 

We citizens after supper don our best clothes 
and go to see this fair, and for that night we 
hardly recognize that thoroughfare, as from the 
four different streets by which we can approach 
it, there hang hundreds of Venetian lanterns, 
around and on top of the porticoes, made from 
fresh flowers. 

A good music comes through the open church 
door, as this large door opens facing the prin- 
cipal street. On that night when the church is 
all illuminated inside, the sight is grand. 

We walk up and down the square until mid- 
night, when we go into the church to hear some 
good organ music and an appropriate talk on 
St. John. After 1 a. m. we go out into the 
square again, and there we wait for the Rugi- 
ada^ the dew of St. John. When we get that 


112 


marietta’s good times. 


we proceed to buy the flowers we want. It is 
customary to buy fresh lavender in branches or 
altea (marshmallow) root, strung up to put in 
our bureaus. 

We children would buy little flower-pots 
with a sprig of some sort in it. The man that 
sold it to us would say that the sprig had a 
root to it ; but very often there is no root at 
all, and we are minus two cents. 

(My visits to the beautiful cemetery^ 

When I was a child I used to go with the 
other children to our cemetery. We have a 
beautiful cemetery; it is outside Porta St. 
Giovanni. 

After you have passed through that door or 
gate you find yourself in a good suburb ; then 
you turn to your left, and you will find your- 
self at the head of the Cypress avenue, which 
is a very long one. At the end of that avenue 
you see a small church; it is ornamented inside 


MY VISITS TO THE CEMETERY. 113 


and out with fine monuments all of white mar- 
ble. You turn to your right, and there you 
begin to see a long open gallery, all of white 
marble; in front of it there is an iron fence to 
prevent people going into it. 

Under those arcades you see some fine 
groups, all carved out of marble of Carrara. 
Each group represents a rich family tomb. 

In one, for instance, you see a beautiful 
young girl, half rising from her bed, with her 
arms extended toward an angel, that is over 
her bed. Her face, like all the others that are 
sculptured there, is a real portrait taken in the 
form of a mask soon after death. 

In another group you could see an old gen- 
tleman sitting outside his palace door, holding 
a large leather bag in his hand, and looking at 
a little boy standing in front of him, half nude. 
The little beggar is extending his little hand to 
receive the soldo that the good man is giving 
him ; in back of him there stands his father, 
haggard-looking, with his hands clasped as in 


114 


marietta’s good times. 


prayer ; and an old woman poorly dressed wait- 
ing patiently for her turn. 

In another group there stands a tall lady 
listening at a half-open door. She is dressed 
in mourning, with her long crepe veil covering 
her all over. She is waiting for her dead hus- 
band to call her. This lady was still living 
when I was in Brescia. 

Well, you could look on there for a whole 
day. There are other monuments all over the 
grounds of the cemetery ; all have a little gar- 
den attached to them. 

There is, low down in the ground, a little 
wooden shed, where all the ex-votos are hung ; 
they are in the shape of wooden legs or arms, 
a bunch of hairpins and so forth, pictures show- 
ing a man, or woman, or child, falling down a 
very steep staircase. At the head of the stair, 
where the door should be, you see the Madonna 
in a cloud, standing there ; and this shows that 
it was she that saved him or her. 

There you see chains and bombs that were 


THE SECOND OF NOVEMBER IN BRESCIA. 115 


thrown on some house ; but the Madonna having 
appeared, they fell, without exploding. There 
are lots of other things of the same sort. 

But what people go there for is to pray for 
their departed friends, and to rub their hand- 
kerchiefs on, or to kiss, a square piece of mar- 
ble placed in the middle of the wall of the 
shed. 

That piece of marble is always damp and 
cool, and they say that underneath there is the 
body of a priest that had turned to be a saint. 
We call him in our dialect El heat curadi^ The 
blessed curate. And they say that it is his 
breath that causes the marble to be damp. 

There are visitors more or less every day, 
but on a Sunday there is a crowd. 

( The second of November in Brescia.) 

The grand day, however, is the second of 
November, Giorno del morti^ Dead Day. 

That day is celebrated as a regular fair day ; 


116 


marietta’s good times. 


all the bakers and pasticcieri make a bread 
that is called pane dei morti^ dead bread. 

The bakers’ bread is made of Indian meal 
and bird seed. The pasticcieri bread 

tastes like American pound cake. The bakers 
send their bread to all their customers. 

Early that November morning all the people 
are out, going toward the cemetery ; rich and 
poor, young and old, all carry some flower- 
token to their departed friends. 

As the cypresses are placed about twelve feet 
apart on the avenue, between each two cypresses 
(that day) you And a stand of some kind. 
There you can buy everything you desire, to 
use or to wear. 

The chestnut man, woman, and boy are 
there ; so is the man with his toys, the florist 
with his flower designs, the man that will make 
you up tresses to put in your locket and ring, 
or make you a picture with the hair of your 
father, mother or friend, to hang up in front 
of their tombs. There too is the candle-man 


THE SECOND OF NOVEMBER IN BRESCIA. 117 


who will sell a quarter-of-an-inch candle to a 
ten-inch candle, all decorated with gold, and 
white, red and green. Then there is the plas- 
ter-figure man ; he has all sorts of things — 
large and small figures, small lambs, cows, 
horses, and small monuments; so if you are too 
poor to have a marble monument for your dead 
you can buy one of his, that will last at least 
until the next Giorno dei morti. 

The inside of our cemetery is like a beautiful 
garden. That day the rich monuments are 
covered with expensive flowers, made up in all 
kind of designs; and when night comes you 
would think yourself in a fairy land, as under 
the gallery burn the five-foot torches ; and as 
each monument has about half a dozen of them 
burning brightly you can read the inscriptions 
on them very easily. Then there are the other 
large monuments all over the grounds and the 
church ; they are illuminated all around. And 
as the poor people have only a stone slab in 
the grounds they place thereon flower-pots in 


118 


makietta’s good times. 


bloom, and in front or at the back they put 
a candle ; but more often they hang an oil 
lantern. 

On this day and night all we children at- 
. tended the show. We provided ourselves with 
twine, matches and scissors, and walked all over 
the ground, looking to our right and left ; if 
we saw any of the lanterns crooked we would 
go and straighten them and fasten them with 
our twine, and we would tie up all the garlands 
that got loose; we snuffed the candles, and 
guided strangers to certain graves, that in the 
midst of such a crowd they lost sight of. 

At the end of that day we went home tired 
and greased, but we enjoyed it very much. 


VIII. 


( Our Punch and Judy^ 

I^W ERY summer evening all the working 
people who could not go to the large 
theaters used to go to the Teatro dell stelle^ “ The 
Theater by Starlight,” as they used to call it ; 
going to see and hear Punch and Judy in the 
open square. 

The owners of the show had put benches in 
front of their barrack ; they charged a cent for 
a seat. Other persons who chose to stand paid 
whatever they chose to the woman when she 
came around during the performance. 

She had a queer candlestick that held a can- 
dle ; it had a handle made into a ring into which 
she passed her finger, and in the bottom there 
was a box made of brass, like the rest of it. 


119 


120 


MARIETTA S GOOD TIMES. 


This box had a soft cover, and whenever she 
got a penny she would push it down so nobody 
could steal it. 

Oh ! how I envied that woman. I thought 
1 would be very happy if I was in her situation ; 
I always wished to live in a circus wagon. 

For a long time I used to follow her with my 
eyes, and finally I began to talk to her. I vol- 
unteered to watch her benches and sell her seats ; 
and so sprung up our friendship that only broke 
up when I came to America. 

This lady with her folks and her puppets 
would give a performance every evening eight 
days in a square, and then move to another ; but 
it made no difference to us. While she kept in 
the limit of five miles we would follow her ; big 
and small. 

We children liked it because we only saw the 
outside of the play ; that is, we paid our atten- 
tion to the dialect phrases of Harlequin, who 
was a counterpart of a Bergamo peasant. 

And the grown-up people liked it because 



121 


OUR PUNCH AND JUDY. 




OUR PUNCH XND JUDY. 


121 


(as I have found out since) they listened to 
regular political speeches on the new bread 
tariff, poultry tariff, and several other things 
that the man inside the puppet barrack had 
learned by heart ; he had been paid for shout- 
ing them through his barrack stage. 

I remember one night we children cried be- 
cause we saw the Carabinieri taking our fav- 
orite man away ; it was just after he had de- 
livered one of those speeches. He himself was 
not crying, however, as he was sure of being 
delivered soon, and he was earning a good pay 
for his family. 

One day, I remember, I discovered the reason 
why this man, when he held up his puppets, 
never looked up at them as the other men did ; 
it was because he wore a wig and he had to 
keep his head down so as not to let it fall off. 

I was so happy in my discovery that I told 
it to everybody. 

The consequence was that he never let me 
go into his barrack again. 


122 


marietta’s good times. 


( The red-haired family.) 

One evening, during one of these perform- 
ances, I made the acquaintance of a red-haired 
girl ; I took a liking to her because she squinted ; 
I always did like people that looked two ways. 

I chatted with her until ten o’clock in the 
eve, when on going home she showed me her 
house. Of course next day after school I 
called on her, and found that she had only a 
mother. But she had two sisters ; the older, 
short and stout, and the younger tall and pretty ; 
also a small boy brother and a big one that was 
already on the stage as a first hallerino ; all red- 
haired. She showed me lots of the hallerino^ s 
costumes. 

The family lived by making and selling cro- 
cants, turnovers and other cakes ; they used to 
make them in a big fondac cellar ; they kept 
all their flour in there, and their sugar barrels, 
and long boards on wooden horses. 

That day I did not return home until eight 


THE RED-HAIRED FAMILY. 


123 


p. M. as I remained with them to dinner, and 
afterwards watched them making their cakes. I 
broke their almonds, and they showed me how 
to put only three half-almonds on each crocant. 

They sold them at a cent apiece. They are 
about four inches long. When the crocants 
were all prepared on those long boards we car- 
ried them to a bake shop opposite. 

We went up a ladder into a little room very 
hot ; it smelled of sugar, heat and yeast. There 
under my eyes I could see some of those cakes 
rise ; but I had to leave them soon, as my head 
felt rising, too. But when they were brought 
back baked we had to detach them ; didn’t I 
eat lots of them ! 

The other girls ate not so many, as they were 
used to them. 

( Our theater in the Bakery cellar^ 

When their big brother came home, we told 
him we would like to start a theater, but he 


124 


marietta’s good times. 


would only teach us to dance. W e did our best 
to please him, and by promising to do some 
tableaux vivants^ we got him to lend us some 
of bis costumes, and he brought some from the 
costumer of the theater. 

We made our theater in the cellar, hut we 
could only give two performances a week (as 
they had to use the boards of our stage to 
jjjiake and cook the cakes on), Wednesdays and 
Saturdays. 

We took some whitewash and painted all the 
place white ; that helped to light it up some. 

In the doorway we hung Chinese lanterns ; 
they were painted white, red and green, the 
Italian colors ; and on the night of the perform- 
ance, the mother of these girls sold souvenir 
cakes with the tickets. 

In this theater we had a good drop curtain, 
and the boys painted some boards, and they 
served as wings ; the cakes were made on the 
other side. It took us all the week to get 
ever thing ready. 


OUR THEATER IN THE BAKERY CELLAR. 125 


We had in our company a lawyer’s son, and 
as he put two francs towards es:penses we gave 
him the best part in the play. 

The opening night the cellar was crowded. 
We gave Daniebe Maning^ a play that could 
only be given on the largest stage of the city, 
but we were ambitious ; and for an after-piece, 
the tableaux vivants with the ballet dei gobbi^ 
under the management of Giovanni Tasolini. 

In the play I had the servant part, with a 
wig made out of very fine paper. 

At the end of a play they have to show be- 
hind a cloud — at first, all the Capitals, with 
Venice liberated; to make the effect of the 
clearing of the clouds, we hung two sheets and 
a mosquito netting ; this last one near the fig- 
ures. As the drapery disappeared and the 
figures became more visible they lighted the 
red bengal, and the effect was beautiful ; but 
the fellow of the drop curtain wanted to look 
at the audience, and let the curtain fall. I ran 
to him and shouted, “ Up, till it is finished!” 


126 


marietta’s good times. 


which he did. The audience liked my idea and 
a2>plauded the show very much. 

After this play, the old lady (mother of the 
girls) went around and sold more crocants, 
while a boy had some nice fresh water for 
those that cared for it. 

Behind the curtain we were divesting our- 
selves of the serious costumes, and dressed up 
for the ballet dei gohbi ; after being dressed we 
had to help to clear the stage, as we had no 
scene-shifters. 

The manager had given us some clothes made 
with long bodices and short pantaloons, all in 
one piece. We jumped into them, and then 
they buttoned them up from behind, with very 
large buttons. 

We were each dressed differently — that is, 
as far as to the color of the dress ; but we all 
had very large, tall hats, and our figures were 
stuffed out with hay. We wore long pointed 
shoes, with no heels ; they were made of kid 
to match the color of the dress. 


OUR THEATER IN THE BAKERY CELLAR, 127 


Then the manager painted our faces. First 
he modeled our faces — thus to me, having 
already a pug nose, he put a big lump of cot- 
ton at the end of my nose, and he enlarged my 
mouth ; then he painted my ears. Another girl 
had a long nose, so he pointed it more. He 
made the most of all defects and peculiarities. 

When we were all fixed to his own liking he 
put us opposite one another. 

We were- eight girls ; we stood four at each 
side of the stage, and when the curtain rose, 
and the people gazed at us, they all burst out 
laughing ; we kept pretty serious for a while, 
but finally we had to laugh, too, as it was the 
first time we had seen one another. We were 
so transformed that for a while our own moth- 
ers could not tell us apart. 

We had for orchestra one of those big Organi 
Yerticali; they contain all the instruments used 
in a regular orchestra. 

We began to dance thus: We faced each 
other and when the music began we all bowed, 


128 


marietta’s good times. 


then we advanced and began to dance a minuet ; 
at intervals we took out from a pocket behind 
a big snuff-box, made for this occasion ; it was 
painted gorgeously. Then we started the Mon- 
frma^ a national dance like the Cachuca in 
Spain. As we dance hand in hand, we turned 
very quick and our backs come together, bang, 
every time ; of course we had to rehearse for 
that dance, so that it might go smoothly like 
any ballet that you see on the real stage. W e 
were very much applauded, but we did not care 
so much for that, as we enjoyed ourselves ever 
so much. 

Well, that was over; altogether the show 
was a success. It lasted from one p. m. to six 
p. M. You never saw a happier community in 
your life ; everybody seemed satisfied. 

When everybody went, we the troupe had 
to dismantle all the theater, as the boys had to 
make their crocants. We had a nice dinner 
afterwards. 

That night I slept happy. 


IX. 


{^Our silk-worms.) 

hen the season comes we children, in 
Italy, have much to do. Almost in 
every house we raise silk-worms. Of course 
the people that raise them for business hire 
large empty houses in the country, so as to be 
near the mulberry-trees; others give out the 
seed to women that choose to raise the silk- 
worms in their houses. 

The silk- worms are very delicate creatures. 
They must have pure fresh air. When we 
have a stormy day they have to be fumi- 
gated, and great care must be taken lest they 
should die suffocated. No tobacco smoking or 
snuff is allowed in a room where there are silk- 
worms; if the women take snuff, they must 


129 


130 


marietta’s good times. 


wash their hands every time before they touch 
the leaves. 


( The silk-worm tables.) 

In the big house where I lived with twenty- 
four other families, there was a woman that 
kept and raised silk- worms. She had ten long 
tables ; these tables are about six feet long and 
four wide ; they are made like the berths of a 
steamer, with the sides of light wood, while the 
bottom is made with corregioiila or knot grass. 
In the middle of the room, they place a strong 
wooden frame with four strong poles. Inside 
these poles they put pegs, and it is on these 
that the tables are laid, one above the other. 

We always leave enough space between the 
tables to let the silk- worms breathe. We always 
begin at the top table to change the worms’ 
bed. 

This woman had a friend of hers to help her; 
she gave her two francs a day and meals ; we 


THE silk-worms’ BIRTH. 


131 


children used to go in and help too, and in pay- 
ment she gave us the dirty beds. 

{The silk-worms^ birth.) 

The first day the silk- worm woman has to sit 
or stand in front of the table, and watch over 
some Japanese silk card-boards twelve by fifteen 
inches big. Those boards are literally covered 
with what seems at first to be fly-specks ; but 
as the room gets warmer those little specks 
begin to move. At her side the woman has pre- 
pared some young leaves of mulberry ; the leaves 
are very dear at first, as the man that picks them 
must be paid three or four francs a day. 

{How the mulberry leaves are picked^ 

When that man goes on a mulberry-tree he 
always wears a red handkerchief on his head, 
and I always have seen this handkerchief tied 
at the four corners ; so when we meet a man in 


132 


marietta’s good times. 


the country with such a handkerchief on his 
head we always say, “ Look ! he looks like a 
Helarino — a leaf-peeler.” 

Then he ties his clean canvas bag opened with 
a wooden hoop, on the tree, and with his hand 
half-shut he picks those tender leaves, but he 
takes care to let them drop, as fast as he can, 
into the bag, which must be kept very loose ; 
and as soon as he has one bag ready he must 
deliver it, because if the leaves get wilted they 
cannot be used. 

{How the baby worms feed.) 

So when the specks on the cards begin to 
move, the woman takes some of these tender 
leaves and lays them very gently on the silk- 
worms ; they look like baby ants at first. 

As soon as that leaf gets covered, she takes 
it by the stem and lays it on another table, and 
she keeps on doing the same thing until these 
specks are all born. Then her task begins in 


HOW THE BABY WORMS FEED. 


133 


earnest; as they grow older, they get bigger, 
and every day she must change their beds. 

It is then that she calls us to help her. 

We begin from the top table ; we put clean 
leaves on the silk- worms (when they have slept 
twice) ; we put on them small twigs of mulberry, 
and when they leave it, that twig is pretty 
enough to frame, as all the branch is there, and 
the leaves are perforated in a most beautiful 
manner ; and when we have waited a certain 
time for the laziest worm to get on that branch, 
then the woman tells us to sweep the bed down 
into a basket, or on a large sheet of paper. We 
take this bed down into the courtyard, and there 
patiently we pick out our silk- worms that are 
left on the twigs of the bed, and we put them 
all in our aprons or basket, and we count them 
and examine them by holding them up to the 
light on the top of our hand. 

If they are lively and without blue spots, we 
keep them ; they are very cool to the touch. 

When they have slept four times we look 


184 


marietta’s good times. 


them through again, and when they look so 
yellow and transparent we know that they are 
ready for the cocoon — hozzolo. 

{How we children sometimes get silk-worms.) 

To take the risk of keeping silk- worms, is 
like playing at a lottery. 

I have known people that took all the care 
possible of them, and at the very end a storm 
would come up, and they ‘all would die suffo- 
cated. And discouraged at the result, they 
would throw them out in a field; and many 
times it happened, that those same silk- worms, 
after having been out in the open air two or 
three days and nights, with a rain on their 
backs into the bargain, would be resuscitated, 
and climbing on some tree or hedge start and 
make the prettiest cocoon you ever saw ; gen- 
erally the farmer boys get those cocoons. 

Sometimes we children follow the woman, 
and when she leaves her sick and dead bachi^ 


THE COCOONS. 


135 


we look them over, and by handling them some- 
times they revive. Sometimes we find a lazy 
one that had not|Shaken his night-shirt off; 
then we take hold of his head and pull his 
shirt off for him. We like to do that very 
much, as it has real fascination to watch the 
silk-worm pull out, first two legs, then four, in 
such a sleepy way. Of course we are not al- 
lowed to do that in the house of that woman, 
but our own are always treated so, and they 
seem to like it, as they make the prettiest 
cocoons for us. 


{^The cocoons,) 

When they are maturi^ ripe as you would 
call them, their “G” on the nape of their necks 
shows very distinctly. That “G” they inher- 
ited from the time their ancestors crawled all 
over poor old Giobbe — Job. 

The woman prepares their bosco for them. 
We call bosco — wood — the rough huts that 


136 


marietta’s good times. 


the woman makes around her room. They are 
made thus : she puts up a shelf all along the wall 
of the room high up above our heads ; on top of 
this shelf she puts lots of fascine — fagots of 
small twigs all bent — so as to form an arch. 
On top of fascine she throws shavings of 
pine-tree — the long curly shaving is preferable, 
as it is inside of those shavings that the silk- 
worm makes his cocoon. 

When this bosco is prepared, the woman 
turns her attention again to the silk-worms. 

She lays long branches of mulberry on the 
hachi^ taking good care that they shall not 
touch the worms too much. Those worms 
that are ready and in good health go very gladly 
on the branch, but those that are sick, die. 

When a branch is well filled up, the woman 
takes it and, climbing very carefully on a short 
step ladder, she lays the branch on the bosco. 

At first the silk-worm seems surprised at its 
new surroundings, and if you watch the worms 
they will remind you of a lot of emigrants 


HOW WE CHILDREN CARE FOR WORMS. 137 


at a strange place ; the difference is this : the 
emigrants look for a place to live in, and the 
hachi look for a place to die in. 

These bach% having selected the place they 
like, set themselves to work at once. 

I thought that they said a farewell to each 
“Other before they closed up their little houses. 

It seems that although they keep very quiet 
in their hozzolo they keep busy just the same 
in mind and body, as you could see by your- 
self ( as I did) when they come out again so 
beautifully transformed into butterflies. 

{How we children take care of worms.) 

Well, I told you how the silk- worms are 
taken care of by the women ; but how are they 
taken care of by us children ? 

First of all, those bachi that we gathered up 
from the beds, are carried by us into one of our 
rooms. We generally make our tables out of 
the doors of our bedrooms, which we take off of 


138 


marietta’s good times. 


their hinges and place on two chairs. Then we 
go ourselves to pick our mulberry leaves ; some- 
times we find a good-natured man, and he will 
give us some from his own bag ; meantime we 
eat the berries — they are sweet and juicy. 

Sometimes our worms will have lots of 
leaves to eat, sometimes they have to wait. 

When we have those great thunder storms, 
so common in our city, and at the time those 
poor women burn olive branches and pray for 
the weather to clear up, we children forget the 
silk- worms and go out to eat the hail, leaving 
our windows open — and those hachi don’t 
die ; they seem to know, like all other insects 
and animals, that they are in the hands of 
children ; they live all through and make the 
cocoons on our shavings, and don’t seem to 
care how our bosco is made. 

We know that when the silk- worm sleeps 
he always keeps his head very erect ; so at the 
fourth time we put on them some branches of 
that same mulberry, and when the branch is 


HOW THE COCOONS ARE SOLD. 


139 


fall we don’t wait for them to leave it, but very 
gently and deftly we take our silk- worms, one 
by one, from the branch, and lay them on the 
shavings. They soon get used to it. 

We children sit there watching them make 
their cocoons ; they seem to sit on their hind 
legs, and they raise themselves up like a goat 
when she wants to eat some branches above 
her head ; and they begin from right to left, 
and spit and spit ; and their spit, or hava^ 
seems to attach itself to the shaving. They go 
on doing so until they work all their houses 
around themselves, leaving just room enough 
to hear them shake when we shake them. 

Sometimes the cocoon is green, sometimes it 
is yellow, and sometimes white. 

(How the cocoons are sold.) 

The cocoons are generally left on the hosco 
until they feel hard ; at the end of that time 
they are gathered and put into large baskets. 


140 


marietta’s good times. 


These are made round, about five feet long, 
with covers at both ends. 

We have a market place for cocoons, and in 
rainy days they occupy a caserma barrack near 
by ; but on fair days the cocoons are laid out 
on the ground over straw matting. As each 
lot of different-colored cocoons are put side by 
side, white, green and yellow, with the sun 
shining over them, the sight is really beautiful. 

Men and women are in the trade, and there 
the great silk commerce is carried on. 

During those market days you can see all 
kinds of people. They come from all parts of 
Lombardy, because although our city is no 
more what it used to be, still it is now the 
great central place for the silk traffic. 

Those people come to buy and sell, to ex- 
change cocoons, to hire women, men, boys and 
girls, for the following work connected with 
the cocoon season, as some buy the cocoons for 
making the seed, and some buy them for 
making the silk. 


HOW THE COCOONS ARE SOLD. 141 


Our cocoons had degenerated so, from dis- 
eased worms, that finally the trades gave these 
up entirely, and bought the Japanese semente 
or seed. I remember having seen a party of 
Japanese sitting at one of the cafes facing the 
cocoon market; they came to sell their seed 
and empty card-boards stamped to be used for 
the other seed. 

Our cocoons were quite large, but not firm. 
The Japanese ones are much firmer and smaller. 

After we girls had gathered our own cocoons, 
we took them to the market and sold them to 
the market woman. 

She always selected them and weighed them. 
We got from two to six francs for each Ubbra 
(our pound is about twelve ounces). The 
price varies according to the quality and the 
market demands. 

With that money we always buy a memento 
to remember our laborious and pleasant days ; 
we buy a ring, a pair of earrings or a pin ; of 
gold of course. 


X. 


(How I engaged for the silk-worm-seed season^ 

summer an old lady asked me if I 
wanted to engage myself for the seed 
season ; I said yes, right off. Accordingly when 
the time came, I went to the hall where every- 
thing was in readiness for work. 

I shall never forget what a sickly impression 
that hall made on me, the first time I saw it. 

As I had come direct from the outside glare 
on the white houses, with the sun as it shines 
in Italy, the hall looked more dark than it was 
with the big blinds shut. What I saw was this : 

At my right there was a mass of something 
white; as my eyes got used to that somber 
light I saw that it was an immense long linen 
sheet placed on clotheshorses, and it resembled 


142 


MY ADVENTURE WITH THE SOUP. 143 


very high waves ; on that long sheet, the old 
lady told me, we would have to put the butter- 
flies when they were ready to lay the seed. 
In the middle of this large room there were 
three sets of long poles; on each set there 
were eight shelves, all filled with cocoons. 

A little room was connected with a door that 
opened into this large one. 

That little room was still more dark, as it 
was in there that the old lady kept by herself, 
taking care of the cartoons after they were 
filled wdth the seed, for they must be kept in a 
cool place until the season of the silk-worms 
arrives ; otherwise, the seed opens, and when 
the young silk- worms are out we have no young 
mulberry leaves to feed them. 

I must tell you my first day’s adventures. 

(My adventure with the soup.) 

The old lady sent me to buy her a tripe soup 
at the next restaurant ; the man put it up in a 


144 


marietta’s good times. 


bowl and then put a large napkin over it, tying 
up the four corners. 

I ran with my soup. And all went well 
until I reached the long staircase; there, I 
wanted to take in two steps at a time (a habit I 
have still). 

That staircase was a little larger than my 
own ; the result was, I fell up. 

I had presence of mind to hold the napkin 
up. 

I did not stop to examine the bowl, as it felt 
all right. 

I laid the napkin as it was in the lap of the 
old lady ; but as soon as she stuck her spoon 
in the soup, the bowl opened as by enchant- 
ment; and there her soup was, all spread over 
her lap. 

As she did not know that I fell, she took it 
for granted that the bowl must have been 
cracked, and she sent me down to scold the 
restaurant, which I did, and he apologized to 


ma 


HOW I DISPOSED OF THE BUTTERFLIES. 145 


{How I disposed of the butterflies.) 

When I got back she set me to work in 
company with three women. 

I had the order to dispose of all the useless 
butterflies ; where or how, they could not tell 
me. 

At flrst I thought that that was an easy job; 
so very gladly I started out with my box, about 
one foot and a half long by one foot wide, full 
of living creatures. 

Seeing that they were butterflies I thought 
they would like to live among the flowers, so I 
took them to the nearest place I knew. 

It was a house where I knew there was a 
beautiful garden. 

I passed by the concierge's door ; I gave her 
the good-morning. She took it for granted 
that I was going through the other door (as 
many of our houses are made with double en- 
trances, and if ypu know the concierge you can 
go through it, thus saving a long walk). 


146 


marietta’s good times. 


But this time when I reached the garden 
gate, I emptied my box, thinking what a beau- 
tiful surprise 1 was making for the lady of that 
house. 

I returned to the hall. The women thought 
I came back very soon, and they asked me 
where I put those useless butterflies; but I 
would not tell them, as I waited for the 
discovery. 

Alas ! it came too soon, and quite different 
from what I had expected. 

Shortly after, as I was at work, I heard 
somebody on the stairs calling my name very 
loud. 

I could not leave my work, but the voice was 
getting near and near, and with the voice there 
came that concierge. She was very red, I 
never saw her in anger before. 

As she came in she stood at the door, for 
the darkness of the place prevented her from 
seeing me. 

I saw her clear enough, though ; as soon as 


HOW I DISPOSED OF THE BUTTERFLIES. 147 


her eyes got used to our light she came up to 
me and gave me a good pull, and in our dialect 
she said : 

“Ha! ha! here you are, pretty figurine; is 
that what you do in other people’s houses — go 
by quiet, quiet, like a cat, and then go in their 
garden and do mischief ! now, my dear Signo- 
rina, come back with me, and pick up all your 
nasty butterflies. Who ever saw such impu- 
dence ! ” and lots of other things she said ; but 
as fast as she was talking she stammered so 
that I could not make out much ; but she did 
say very plainly : “ I shall never let you go by 
my courtyard any more ! ” 

I began to see that my task was not “ sweet 
roses and violets,” as we say in our dialect. 

I was so surprised at that event that I forgot 
to cry or to laugh. 

I followed the angry woman, and there in 
the garden I saw that she was right to get mad. 

My beautiful butterflies, having lost all their 
fine down, they looked pretty, pretty shabby ; 


148 


marietta’s good times. 


they looked like common shipwrecked cater- 
pillars, with two stumps at their hacks in place 
of their once beautiful wings. 

Although I was young, I took an interest in 
animals and insects, and the sight before my 
eyes made me feel compassion for them ; be- 
cause a few hours before I saw those same 
wretches healthy and proud, and now they 
were but half-living bodies ! 

I could not touch them with my hands, and 
I used the cover of my box to take them up with. 

When they were in my box again, I sat out- 
side that house, and thought, and thought, 
what I should do with them. 

Finally I had an idea — I would drown them; 
so I walked towards my house, and going up 
two flights I knocked at the door of a girl- 
friend of mine. 

I told her that I wanted to drown my butter- 
flies, so she opened a door for me and I found 
myself in a sort of a garret with a large win- 
dow without blinds or glass ; through that win- 


I AGAm SEE THOSE BUTTERFLIES. 149 


dow you look down a stream that runs under 
all our houses. I opened my box ; it was time 
they were dead. When I saw them in the 
water I gave a sigh of relief. 

After having had a chat with the girl I went 
to work again. 

When I entered the hall, all those women in 
one voice asked me what had I done with the 
butterflies. I told them I drowned them ; they 
looked at each other with an expression — I 
could not make out what it meant. 

My heart was at peace now. 

(Z again see those butter flies.) 

At 8 p. M. they let me go home (we have 
lunch furnished by the proprietaries. It con- 
sists of bread, cheese, wine and fruit). 

I was getting near home, when I saw some 
people looking towards me, and a boy said : 
“ Here she comes ! ” 

I thought at first that the concierges story 


150 


marietta’s good times. 


had got around the street, so I did not feel 
uneasy; but as I got inside of my large door 
there I saw the fat cook of the restaurator call- 
ing me with his short index finger. I was go- 
ing by him, but he said : “ Come here, come 
here, I want to see you a momentino / ” 

As I went up to him he took me by the 
hand ; he led me through his big kitchen, and 
inside of a shed, the same size as the one up- 
stairs, he made me look down in the water, and 
before my eyes I saw what remained of my 
miserable creatures again ! 

I forgot that there was a grating, and the 
water was low. 

The cook said that for several hours he 
smelled something unusual, and on investigat- 
ing he saw those dead butterflies; he soon 
found out that they had been drowned by the 
daughter of the American. These butterflies 
I was not obliged to take away — he called a 
spazzino who took care of them. Of course I 
promised never to di'own another lot there. 


HOW I AMUSED MYSELF. 


151 


{How I amused myself.) 

Next day I went to work again ; the old 
lady showed me how to take the mother but- 
terflies from the cartoon and place them on 
that long sheet ; we have to take them gently 
by the wing and let them grapple on to the 
sheet. When the mother butterflies have laid 
all their eggs, which is the silk- worm seed, they 
droop and die. 

Then comes another disagreeable task for 
me; now I had two boxes to dispose of. You 
see I had failed twice, and it was only the ob- 
stinacy in me that kept me at the job and pre- 
vented me going home and playing with the 
other girls. But I stuck to my motto : “ Never 
give up that which I have hegunP 

One day while waiting for the box I was to 
empty, I stood looking out of the window with 
the blinds closed, and for fun I dropped a but- 
terfly now and then ; some would stick to the 
sign of the druggist below, and some did go 


152 


marietta’s good times. 


where I intended they should — on top of peo- 
ple’s hats ; one of those butterflies on top of a 
black hat you can see a great distance off. 

One fell on a boy’s coat, and I saw that he 
was delighted with it, so that I dropped several 
to him. 

He shouted for more. His voice was heard 
by the other boys that were coming out from 
the schoolhouse near by. 

They all ran towards him, and as they looked 
discouraged because he would not give them 
any, I ran into the little room, took the box, 
and opening the window just enough to let 
that box go through, I emptied it on top of 
their heads and shoulders. 

These boys shouted with joy; everything 
would have gone well if they had been dif- 
ferent from other boys ; but they were not. 
After having filled up their hats, they wanted 
to knock off those that were on top of that 
druggist’s sign. 

The result was that the droghiere came out, 


HOW I DISPOSED OP OTHER BUTTERFLIES. 153 


and, being very cross by nature, caught one of 
the boys on his sign, and he gave him a good 
spank ; the boy of course told him that it was 
my fault. 

He left the boy, rushed upstairs ; this time 
the women did not know what was the matter ; 
he was too cross to speak. He wanted to take 
me to the caserma (police station). Of course 
I did not want to go ; and he, seeing those four 
big women, thought he had better not insist, so 
he went away, grumbling to himself. 

{How I disposed of some other hutterjlies.) 

An hour afterward I had to take the other 
box to destroy; and in order to avoid the 
druggist I went round a whole block, so as to 
get out of the city. 

I took to the road, and walked away out, 
and there feeling very guilty I began to scatter 
my butterflies in the dust of the road ; when 
I finished I took another road and came home. 


154 


marietta’s good times. 


As I was but a young girl I began by feeling 
tired, not physically, but morally; I began to 
feel that the silk- worm-seed business was not 
so funny as I had expected. I had to work 
Sunday too; but as a treat they let me go 
down to the doorway, but I was not allowed 
to go home, as I had my regular dumping work 
to do. 

One Sunday as I stood in that doorway, I 
tried to pass my time by counting all the peo- 
ple I knew, whose names began with B, but 
as I counted I began to feel sleepy, and once I 
caught myself standing up asleep. 

At vesper time our city is very quiet, as it 
is siesta time .also ; I felt the influence of the 
surroundings. 

I tried a few of my acrobatic feats, such as 
standing on my hands, with my feet toward 
the wall, and distorting my arms and feet. 
But that work too. was getting too monoto- 
nous ; so 1 took off my apron and made up my 
mind to kill all the flies that would light on a 


I NUESE SOME SILK-WORMS. 


155 


certain hinge of that big door; as by doing 
that I had to jump, I got waked up a little. 

As I was engaged in my new sport I heard 
my name called. I knew what that meant; I 
took my boxes, taking care to change my road 
every day. 

Finally the day came that our cocoons were 
all emptied of their butterflies; so we took one 
of those round baskets, throwing the cocoons 
inside and we looked them over very carefully; 
and when all those cocoons were packed away, 
and the women had put up the single shelf of 
the young silk-worms, the place looked very 
lonesome, as all the brightness of those cocoons 
was gone forever. I was glad the butterflies 
season was over, any way. 

(^I nurse some silk-worms,) 

Now I had a pleasanter work to do ; I had to 
feed some young bachi I had saved and change 
their beds ; this time the beds were all mine. 


156 


marietta’s good times. 


I took the beds in the courtyard, and kept 
them all to myself. 

The women gave me a corner in the hall, 
and when our boss came, he looked at them, 
and asked me if it was a special kind of seed 
that I was trying ; he shook his head at them 
and said : “ They look very shabby ! ” It is 
true they were pretty lame, but I never could 
throw away a silk- worm unless he was really 
dead. 

Well, I stuck to these sick silk- worms to the 
last, and at the end of the season, I found I 
had fifty-five cocoons. I presented them to 
my boss ; he gave me a franc, as a recompense 
for my perseverance. 

( What I did with my wages.) 

When I finished with them I received fifteen 
francs as my wages ; I did not go home with 
my money ; I stopped at a Jewish dry-goods 
store and I bought for myself a dress pattern. 


WHAT I DTD WITH MY WAGES. 157 


which figure I knew by heart, as I admired it 
everj^ day I went by his store. 

I was proud of that dress, as it was my very 
first new dress — I always had my sister’s old 
clothes made up for me. 

But I was not lucky with that dress, as the 
dressmaker to whom I gave it spoiled it in 
cutting it, and as I could not get any more 
cloth like it, my sister had to patch it up the 
best she knew. 

I tell you, I have cried a good deal for that 
dress. 

Well, it was one of the greatest disappoint- 
ments that befell me during my youthful days; 
I have never bought a dress pattern since. 


XI. 


( Our annual fair.) 

N August our annual fair begins. One by 
one you may see the acrobatic companies 
come, and slowly, slowly the tents are raised. 

We have squares, and several lots, where 
these tents are allowed to be raised. Inside 
these tents you can see everything that is in 
the line of a show. 

In one of them, for instance, you may see 
through several magnifying lenses all the 
world, and a man, if you desire, will describe 
the scenes to you without extra charge beyond 
what you have paid at the door — which is 
three cents. 

As an extra treat you can always have a 
view or two showing you several bodies nude, 


168 


HOW I ASSISTED AT A PASSION PLAY. 159 


thrown on a beach ; they are drowned people, 
and they have been photographed before the 
coroner arrived. 

As they were taken in profile, I remember 
they looked to my eyes like flesh-colored frogs. 

(^How I assisted at a Passion Play.) 

In another tent they show the Passion of 
Christ, but not as at Oberammergau. 

In that show I have helped a good deal. 

They pitched their tent right in front of our 
big house. I was standing before their en- 
trance, and there I heard the troupe talking 
about supper; when a pretty girl came out 
from the tent, and said that she had enough if 
she could have a piece of bread and cheese of 
Grujere, and she wished she knew where to get it. 

I stepped forward and told her I would take 
her to a place where she could buy good 
cheese. 

So she came with me, and as we started 


160 


marietta’s good times. 


back toward the tent we had much talk about 
ourselves, and she told me that they slept at a 
hosteria — hostelry — called the Aquila nero^ 
Black Eagle. I told her that I would go there 
any time she wanted me to accompany her. 

When we arrived at the tent she took me in. 
Once in I saw that the place was arranged dif- 
ferently from the other tents, as this one had 
first, second and third seats ; they cost ten, fif- 
teen and twenty centimes^ according to the 
locality. 

As I followed the girl behind the stage, I 
could see the preparations for the coming per- 
formance. I saw a very large platform ; it was 
round, and covered with a dark green rug; 
under that platform I heard some giggling, and 
looking under it I saw lots of boys ; some were 
acquaintances of mine ; they were paid a cent 
each for each performance, and their work con- 
sisted in pushing the platform around when the 
man in charge of it told them to do so. 

I saw all the Holy Family sitting and lying 


HOW I ASSISTED AT A PASSION PLAY. 161 


around, taking their supper according to their 
fancies. 

The girl gave me some of her bread and 
cheese, and 1 joined the company. 

I saw the Christ, that a few minutes later had 
to expire on the cross, drinking out of a bowl 
some wine, and chatting away very merrily. 
Pilate was adjusting some of his dress gear ; 
the Madonna that night was not feeling very 
well ; she kept lying on a pile of old clothes, 
but she was already dressed. 

When my girl came out from a curtain where 
she went to dress, she looked beautiful; her 
hair was down on her shoulders, and she had 
on a faded pink long loose robe. 

She was the daughter of the fellow that im- 
personated the Christ; Pilate was her uncle, 
the Madonna was her mother, and another girl 
was the Magdalen of the show. 

As we were there waiting for the orchestra 
to strike one of her melodies (this Jerusalem 
orchestra was one of those old-fashioned 


162 


marietta’s good times. 


organ ettes ; the music that comes out of them is 
very melodious, like an old harpsichord) as a 
signal to get ready, we heard a great row out- 
side the tent. 

Pilate and the Christ put on an overcoat, and 
went out to see what was the matter. 

It turned out to be another company of the 
Passion of Christ, that came a day too late, and 
in finding this other show well-filled, it made 
the manager very cross indeed ; but Pilate and 
the Christ invited them inside the tent, they 
sent out for some more wine and cheese, and 
everything went along very well. 

They remained there to see the performance, 
and then bidding each other farewell they went 
to try their luck at another village. 

The performance began thus : 

The Christ as a young boy dressed in a red 
tunic, stood on the platform. Around him 
there were five persons dressed as doctors ; 
Christ had his hand and arm raised , as if 
preaching. 


HOW I ASSISTED AT A PASSION PLAY. 163 


The bell rang and up went the curtain. 

A man dressed in black with a rattan stick 
in his hand, stood up and told the public that 
before them stood Christ preaching to the doc- 
tors. After that the organette played a sym- 
phony very slowly, twice, the figures remaining 
stiff as if they were made of wood, facing the 
audience five minutes, then the curtain dropped. 

After five minutes’ waiting, the curtain went 
up for the second quadro^ as we called it. 

Now the Christ was standing, already grown 
to man ; he was surrounded by his apostles, 
the same persons only dressed differently. 

In the third scene Christ is standing before 
Pilate. Pilate is sitting in a large arm chair, 
the judges are all around him. A boy stands 
at the side of Pilate with a paper gilt basin for 
Pilate to wash his hands in. Christ stands in 
front with his hands tied behind him. 

The fourth scene shows the fellows gambling 
with dice for the tunic of Christ. 

The fifth scene shows Christ going toward 


X 


164 marietta’s good times. 

the Monte Calvario ; he meets Veronica; she 
has a linen handkerchief ; when the curtain 
raises, this time Veronica moves toward Christ 
as if she was made of wood, and was wound 
up ; she rubs her kerchief on the face of Christ, 
and then in the same movement she turns a 
little with the handkerchief spread out in her 
hands, and there we actually see his portrait. 
They go around twice, and that comes to an 
end. 

Number six shows Christ on a cross ; he 
looks nude, but he is covered with a flesh- 
colored jersey cloth, and wears a little petti- 
coat ; on his head he wears the thorny wreath ; 
a man stands in front of him with a long- 
handled spear, the point of which is already 
stuck in the left breast of Christ. As they 
stop, a man in the black dress says ; “ Behold 
the death of Christ ! ” and when everybody 
is still the man with the spear pulls it out 
with a jerk ; Christ raises his eyes and there 
you see what looks real blood, but if you 


THE monkeys’ theater. 


165 


were inside the tent you could see that it is a 
lot of red silk. 

(^The monkeys* theater^ 

The other shows are all varied. Some have 
the monkeys’ theater, and all the monkeys and 
dogs there have dresses, and they actually act 
and perform regular pantomimes. 

I remember the monkeys’ show, because my 
brother made the wooden block for the head- 
ings of their advertising cards, and beside get- 
ting a good price for it they told him to send 
all his family. As I heard the man myself, I 
did not forget it. I went in that same day, 
and as I enjoyed myself so much I thought I 
would do a good turn to some of my friends. 

The following day I made my appearance at 
the door of that tent with two girls ; of course 
they did not look very much like me^ but I 
told the lady in attendance that they were 
cousins of mine, so we went in. 


166 


marietta’s good times. 


-After two days, seeing a man at that door, I 
went to get two boys; I told him they were 
my foster brothers. He let us in, but when 
we came out he accosted me and said that I 
had the biggest relationship he ever saw before ; 
but 1 told him that he did not lose anything 
by it, as I only went in in the afternoon and I 
helped to make his place pleasant with my 
parties, and that they sent their elder folks in 
the evening, which was true; so he let me 
bring more children, but only two at a time. 

Oh ! the monkey pantomimes ! I shall never 
forget them. 

The first one was this : 

Think yourself in a tent with seats (chairs) on 
the three sides of it ; at the end a long table. 

The man comes out from a curtain at the 
back, and tells the people that they will see a 
pleasant party of girls and fellows (monkeys) 
come in and look around and take seats at the 
table and call for the waiter; the waiter will 
come out of his little tent to take their orders 


THE monkeys’ theater. 


167 


— and as to the end of the pantomime, we will 
see it for ourselves. 

The man then retires, and at the sound of a 
bell the party comes in, two and two, arm in 
arm ; the girl monkeys with fans and parasols, 
the boys with canes and lorgnettes. * 

They look around, and after having made 
the turn of the tent, they go and sit at the 
long table ; a girl and a boy sit alternate. 

After they rid themselves of their fans, canes 
and parasols, they begin to make their mouths 
go, and they gibber and gibber away, and they 
are very funny to look at. 

One boy finds a bell on the table ; he wants 
to ring it, but a girl snatches it away from him 
and she rings it pretty loudly. We all laugh, 
and they too, showing us their teeth. 

They wait a little while, and then they all 
pound with their hands on the table. While 
they are doing this you can see the cook or ser- 
vant (monkey) coming out of a doll tent, give 
a look at them, gibber away and disappear. 


168 


maeietta’s good times. 


After he has done that twice, he comes out 
with his white cap, short jacket and long apron, 
with a napkin on his shoulder. He looks at 
them first, then he advances ; and when he is 
in front of their table you should see what a 
1"everence he makes to them, his cap in hand. 
He really almost bends in two — and how he 
puts his little paw on his breast ! 

Then he goes back and returns with a com- 
ical long bill of fare, it is about a meter long. 
W ell, those girls and boys read it ; return it to 
him pointing out the things they like to have. 

He comes next with a large waiter ; on it are 
several tin cups; he goes back and brings 
several small lacquer bottles full of wine. 
These monkeys fill up their cups, and clink 
them against each other. The cook comes out 
with a covered basket full of eatables. He 
stops half-way, looks around, turns his back on 
his customers, and sticks his long fingers into 
it ; he cannot draw out what is inside, so he 
sits on the ground and pulls out a big bunch of 


THE monkeys’ theater. 


169 


grapes. He eats some and returns it to the 
basket ; then he takes out a plate of beaten 
cream ; he puts his fingers in and chews them, 
just as well as we children do when we have 
the chance, and then he rises and serves them. 

After his party have had a good dinner, he 
presents them the bill. They don’t want to pay ; 
he stamps his little foot on the ground; they 
show their fists at him, and the row begins. 

One fellow runs away ; pretty soon he comes 
back with two gendarmes^ and the way some 
fellow tries to run away, and the gendarmes 
catch him and tie his hands, is comical to see. 

They march the party off, and the dis- 
appointed cook goes into his little tent, holding 
his little head with both his hands. 

I tell you it is really enjoyable to see how 
those monkeys work without a man about 
them, and they seem to enjoy it too. 

I have found those brutes more intelligent 
than others I have had to meet in later days. 


170 


marietta’s good times. 


( The military dogs.) 

Another pantomime I saw showed a fortress 
and in front of it a little soldier dressed in a 
red uniform carrying a gun, and pacing up 
and down. 

This one was a dog. 

By and by another dog comes out dressed in 
a blue blouse, as a laborer; he is smoking a 
pipe, and as he approaches the guard barks. 
No answer ; he levels his gun at the fellow’s 
breast; the laborer seems to understand; he 
turns his back and runs out as fast as he can, 
with two hind legs. 

A little dog comes out dressed very coquet- 
tishly ; she holds a parasol in her mouth, she 
holds in her paw a paper, the soldier looks at 
it and shakes his head ; she goes away. 

The manager now comes out and tells the 
audience that this lady is the wife of the con- 
demned officer, and came to find out if he was 
alive yet, and the soldier said yes to her ; then 



THE MILITAKY DOGS. 





THE MILITARY DOGS. 


171 


with her paper she would run to the general to 
ask him to sign a pardon. 

In the next scene they are bringing the con- 
demned man to be shot. 

He is a nice, tall, military-looking officer (a 
very nice dog). Four other officers come out 
with muskets (these are monkeys), they band- 
age his eyes with a handkerchief, and they 
make him stand two yards off. 

At a given signal from behind the curtain, 
their guns are levelled at the culprit, and hang^ 
hang^ they go off. He drops cold dead. 

Just at that moment his wife comes in with 
the pardon in her arms. Alas ! too late, too 
late ! She goes away crying. 

Now come two big monkeys dressed in dark 
clothes; one is pulling a dark green covered 
wagon. They come in front, they open the 
wagon ; one gets hold of the head and the 
other takes hold of the feet of the dead officer. 

(During all this interval that dog don’t move 
a muscle.) 


172 


marietta’s good times. 


They lay him carefully in the wagon. Hav- 
ing shut it down they take their place again, 
only one pulls the wagon and the other pushes 
it from behind, and off they go. 

Of course they varied their performances, 
and that shows how much those brutes can do 
with an assiduous, kind education. As the 
manager said — they all have been taught by 
kindness and presents of sugar, sweet almonds 
and grapes. 


XII. 


{How we worked in leather^ 

Y j"^HE last work that I did in Brescia before 
leaving it for America, was card cases 
and portfolios. 

I worked with lots of other girls there. W e 
had to take the hides as they came (whole), 
and with a form of a card case made of iron, 
we marked as many forms as we could get on, 
on every skin, and then we cut them out with 
strong shears. 

Those forms that were whole and smooth, 
we only printed with a plain stamp, but those 
forms that we had to join we put under a press 
that had a most elaborate pattern on it, so as 
to conceal the places we glued. 

Then we made glass photograph-holders, and 
we had to stencil the design on. 


173 


174 


marietta’s good times. 


I helped to make drinking-cups, in a boat- 
shape ; these, too, were made of leather. 

We had lots of blocks, boat-shaped, and we 
stretched a piece of leather on each and nailed 
it on ; afterwards we trimmed the leathers and 
varnished them, so to make them patent 
leather. 


{^The large blue letter^ 

Well, one day that I was working on the 
leather card cases, my mother can>e to see me 
with a large blue letter in her hand. After 
she spoke to me a short time, she begun to 
speak English to me. 

I did not know what to make out of it. 
After I reminded her that I cooild not under- 
stand her, she told me to come home. 

As in joke, I bade a pathetic farewell to all 
my working-girls, and told them that it was the 
last time they would see me in that building. 

I followed my mother home ; there in the 


THE LARGE BLUE LETTER. 


175 


sitting-room I found the rest of the family and 
they told me that mother had heard news from 
her flourished country, America. 

That letter had traveled thousands of miles ; 
as after it left America it had traveled all over 
Verona, Mantua, Peschiera, back to Tyrol, and 
finally, having gone to Mori, they began to 
send it by little posts. 

That letter had knocked at great many doors ; 
if it had traveled a little longer, they could not 
have read the address. It was stamped all 
over it. Finally after three months it had 
fallen in the hands of the owner. 

That letter was written by one of my 
mother’s friends, to whom she and Charlie, 
little boy and girl, had written a letter when 
they arrived at Palermo in 1835. 

In the letter, his reply, he said, that one day 
in looking over the contents in an old trunk, 
he found the old yellow letter, and a desire 
seized him at once to know what became of 
Lucy and Charlie, wondering if they were 


176 


marietta’s good times. 


married, as he was himself ; so taking the let- 
ter downstairs, he wrote to the only address 
that letter contained. 

In his letter he reminded Lucy and Charlie 
of the beautiful woods, the old school-house, 
the old mill and many other things, saying how 
delighted he would be to see them again. 

You may imagine the excitement in the 
hearts of those two, brother and sister ; they 
both wished themselves “young again, but as 
that was an impossible feat, they arranged that 
I should go with my older sister, and my aunt 
and uncle. The rest of the family would join 
us as soon as the family affairs were settled. 

I stopped work and went to give the news 
to everybody of mj par tenza. 

My young friends gave a dance in my honor 
in a farmhouse familiar to us. When the 
farmer’s family heard that I was going away to 
the New World, they gave us everything 
gratis, that Sunday. 

I had to dance with every one, and my tears 


THE LARGE BLUE LETTER. 


177 


fell silently on my cheeks. I sobbed and 
sobbed while I wanted to tell my friends I was 
willing to go. W e exchanged lots of presents, 
trifles, but the heart of the giver was in them. 

The last day and night before I had to leave 
my happy home I kept out of my mother’s way, 
as she would take my head into her hands, and 
looking in my eyes (with tears in hers) she 
would ask me if I was going away willingly. 

I repeated “yes,” always, and then I ran 
away; for what was the use to say “no ”? I 
knew I had to go, and when I give a word I 
stick to it, if it cost to me unhappiness. 

So that last day and night I spent it with 
the neighbors, and out in the piazza sitting on 
the steps that surround our fountain ; and my 
mother with a large company found me. I 
called all my girls and boys together, and went 
with them to a restaurant, where a big collation 
awaited us. 

The last one ! After that, we all went at 
the station, and in the cars everything seemed 


178 


marietta’s good times. 


a dream to me. I could not realize my true 
position. A momentary impulse set me to 
write my name and the date of that day on one 
of the stone pillars near the depot, and persons 
I saw a few years afterwards told me they 
could read it there still. 

Once in the cars I stared at the crowd ; I 
had a lump in my throat ; I wanted to answer 
to all and I could not. 

Well, we were moving; I heard somebody 
scream, and I saw several white handkerchiefs 
wavering ; they looked like as many doves. 

The Addio that came out of my throat was 
hoarse. I lost sight of my family ; the lump 
in my throat went down ; I cried. 

(I see the sea.) 

We stopped at Cremona, Bologna, Pisa, Pis- 
toja and finally one morning we saw Livorno. 

I asked a passenger what it was — that large 
plain I saw away off, with so many May-poles 


MY LAST SUNDAY IN ITALIA. 


179 


sticking out here and there ; he told me that it 
was salt water, and the May-poles were masts 
of ships ; one was the ship that was to take me 
to America. I felt a sinking sensation at the 
sight, as you must know I never had seen the 
sea, not even a lake. 

We stopped to get a dinner in a restaurant, 
where they gave us some very good chianti 
wine, and we bought some cordials and citrons, 
and taking a boat we went to see the ship. 

It was a three-masted ship, twenty-two 
years old; on board I found a nice pleasant 
lady and she told my uncle she was the cap- 
tain’s wife, by the name of Nickerson. 

The ship could not sail before Monday, and 
our boatman told us that the morrow being 
Sunday, he would call for us. 

(My last Sunday in Italia.) 

So at ten in the morning he came in his 
boat; it was decorated with pretty draperies. 


180 


marietta’s good times. 


and had a few rugs in it. With him there was 
his wife. 

We went with them, and we saw that we 
were followed by another boat. It contained 
two ladies and three gentlemen. 

The ladies looked very pretty, with their 
clear skins and black eyes ; they wore pink and 
white and pink and blue kerchiefs on their 
heads ; they had two mandoUni^ a guitar and 
a flute with them. They took us to the faro 
— the beacon light. 

Arrived there we took out two large panieri^ 
baskets, full of good things to eat and drink, 
we spread the rugs on the beautiful marble 
spazio^ and after having enjoyed our dinner, 
we went up to the faro-keeper, and presented 
him with a bottle of chianti wine and a piece 
of ciambella ; afterwards we went to the molo. 

There I saw all kind of people of all nation- 
alities. Lots of lioats full of young ladies and 
children kept coming. 

They were all provided with at least a string 


MY LAST SUNDAY IN ITALIA. 


181 


instrument, and on that molo they danced a 
variety of dances. 

At crepuscolo we went back into the boat, 
and they took us all around the different ships. 

When they found out that my sister had a 
good voice, they insisted to have at least a song 
from her. 

She has a clear soprano voice, but I never 
heard it so vibrating and powerful as I did on 
that evening. 

There was no breeze ; the calm around us, 
with the sun setting, and the dull thud of the 
oars — it all helped to bring out the sound of 
her argentine tones ; the accompaniment of the 
guitar and mandolin just suited her voice. 

But she could not finish her song ! the fare- 
well to her lover came back fresh to her 
memory ; tears were falling on her cheeks, we 
all felt the influence, we let her cry ; after a 
while these good people asked her to give at 
least un piccolo Addio alV Italia 

So she sang again. 


182 


marietta’s good times. 


This time they let the boat go adrift. 

The captain had heard the music, but it 
being dark he did not know where it came 
from ; he was very pleased when our two boats 
stopped under his ship, and the occupants gave 
II GOTO dei Lombardi and VAddio. 

Night came, we all went on the ship — and 
there we stood to look for the last time on our 
dear, dear Italia. 


I 


D. LOTHROP COMPANY’S 


BAILY (Rev. Thomas Lf.). 

POSSIBILITIES. i2ino, 1.25. 

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CLOVER LEAVES : A collection of Poems. Compiled and 
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who have the answering sentiment to 


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material that the Lord has given her. 


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SELECT LIST OF BOOKS. 


FAITH AND ACTION. 

Selections from the writings of F. D. Maurice. With preface by 
Rev. Phillips Brooks, D. D. lamo, i.oo. 

Few English clergymen are better known in this country than Frederic D. Maurice, 
whose untimely death, some years ago, deprived not only England, but the Christian 
world, of one of its ablest religious teachers. He devoted a great deal of his time to 
the social and religious needs of the common people. 

Maurice w'as a dear friend of Tennyson. The following lines in one of the poet’s 
best-known pieces refer to his friend : 

“ How best to help the slender store. 

How mend the dwellings of the poor. 

How gain in life as life advances. 

Valor and charity more and more.” 


FARMAN (Ella). (Mrs. C. S. Pratt.) 

‘Ella Farman is the editor of Wide Awake, and her books are full of sympathy with 
girl-life, always sunshiny and hopeful, always pointing out new ways to do things and 
unexpected causes for happiness and gladness. 

THE COOKING-CLUB OF TU-WHIT HOLLOW. 

l2mo, illustrated, 1.25. 

The practical instructions in housewifery, which are abundant, are set in the midst 
of a bright wholesome story. Girls who read this book will not be able to keep house 
at once, but they will learn to do some things, and they will have an hour or two of 
genuine pleasure in discovering how there came to be a cooking-club and in tracing its 
history. 


GOOD-FOR-NOTHING POLLY. i2mo, illustrated, i.oo. 

Polly is not a girl at all, but a boy, a slangy, school-hating, fun-lov'ng, wilful, big- 
fiearted boy. “ Na^ed ” continually at home, he wastes his time upon the streets and 
finally runs away. The book tells of his adventures. Mrs. Pratt has a keen insight 
into the joys and sorrows of the little appreciated boy-life. Like Robert J. Burdette, 
she is a master of humor and often touches a tender chord of pathos. Every boy will 
he delighted with this book and every mother ought to read if who is, all unwittingly 
perhaps, “freezing ” her own noisy boy out of the home. 

“ ‘ Good-for-Nothing Polly ’ will doubt- England as it has already done in the 
less gam the admiration and win the United States.” — BooiseUer, London. 
graces of as large a circle of readers in 


HOW TWO GIRLS TRIED FARMING. i2mo, illustrated, 


1.00. 

A narrative of an actual experience. 

“ The two girls who tried farming 
solved a problem by taking the bull by 
the horns, and that is often as effectual a 
means as can be resorted to. They had 
for capital one thousand dollars. With 
this they bought tliirty-five acres of 
scraggy farm land. Then they hired out 
as lady help for the winter and laid by 
enough money to buy clover seed, and a 
horse and a few other necessities. Dolly 
had learned to plough and harrow and 
make hay, and even to cut wood. Both 
girls worked hard and it is pleasant to 
chronicle their success. Now they have 
a jMTOsperous farm, and raise cows, sheep, 


pigs and chickens, and as they do every- 
thing to the best of their ability, their 
products are in constant demand.” — Si. 
Louts Post Despatch. 

“ We recommend it to those girls who 
are wearing out their lives at the sewing- 
machine, behind counters or even at the 
teacher’s desk.” — New York Herald. 

“ The success of the farm is almost 
surpassed by the charm of the record. 
It shows a touch of refinement and a 
degree of literary skill no less uncommon 
than the enterprise which lias converted 
a bleak hill-top of Michigan into a smil* 
ing garden .” — New York Tribune. 














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